It was a farm idea with a big payoff and supposedly no downside: ridding lakes and rivers of raw sewage and industrial pollution by converting it all into a free, nutrient-rich fertilizer.

Then last week, a federal judge ordered the Agriculture Department to compensate a farmer whose land was poisoned by sludge from a waste treatment plant. His cows had died by the hundreds. Some of the same contaminants showed up in milk that regulators allowed a neighboring dairy farmer to market, even after some officials said they were warned about it.

In one case, the level of thallium — *an element once used as rat poison* — found in the milk was 120 times the concentration allowed in drinking water by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The contaminated milk and the recent ruling raise new doubts about a 30-year government policy that encourages farmers to spread millions of tons of sewage sludge over thousands of acres each year as an alternative to commercial fertilizers. The program is still in effect.

Read (AP via MSNBC)