Safe Fertilizer Information Institute

Your source for information about all aspects of waste-derived fertilizers
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Shawn Waliser, Principal

 
Shawn Waliser is a licensed attorney whose practice focuses exclusively on working to stop hazardous waste being used in fertilizer.  She is the former Director of Legal and Regulatory Programs for Safe Food and Fertilizer.  Also, a former adjunct professor at Seattle University School of Law teaching an advanced Administrative law course in the Agency Rulemaking Process.  Ms. Waliser is an honors graduate of Seattle University School of Law where she served as Research and Technical Editor on the Seattle University Law Review and was nominated for the Faculty Scholar Award.
 
The model bill in her law review article titled Another Tragedy of the Commons: Placing Cost Where it Belongs by Banning Hazardous Substances in Fertilizer Through State Legislation, 18 J. Envtl. L. & Litig. 51 (2003) has been sponsored to the Hawaii Senate as SB3179, 23rd Legislative Session 2006 (passed the Senate as SB3179 SD2), and again as SB1037, 24th Legislative Session 2007.  It was also quoted extensively by Sen. Preister in his testimony to a Nebraska State Legislative Committee and in a bill he sponsored to the Nebraska State Legislature (2004).
 
Ms. Waliser has authored several comments to the U.S. EPA and state-level agency rulemakings. She has also given oral testimony before the U.S. EPA and state Legislative committees.  Her work was instrumental in winning remand of the EPA's Zinc Fertilizer Rule back to the EPA (Safe Food and Fertilizer v. EPA, 350 F.3d 1263 (D.C. Cir. 2003), remanded on rehearing, 365 F.3d 46 (D.C. Cir. 2004)). 
Philosophy
The use of toxic hazardous industrial waste in fertilizer will stop only through market and political action.  But rational decisions require information and this subject is so complex it is difficult for all but the most dedicated to find, understand, and synthesize this information into an effective tool.  Ms. Waliser believes information is power and a person informed on this issue can't help but make the rational, and right, decision to stop this shameful practice.  
 
We do not take a position, for or against, the efficacy or value of synthetic fertilizers, or synthetic vs. organic fertilizers.  Our position is simple - toxic hazardous 'waste' does not belong in fertilizer and until this practice is stopped the public has a right to know exactly what material is in the product they buy and the risk they assume thereby.

 

The Movement's Founders
The story of how toxic hazardous waste gets into fertilizer and then to food and the environment is a complex and frightening story.

This shameful practice was first brought to light by Patty Martin in 1997. She was able to interest Duff Wilson, an investigative reporter for the Seattle Times (now with the New York Times) in doing a story. That story, Fear in the Fields, eventually ran over three days in July, 1997. Duff later expanded the story in an incredible book, nominated for a Pulitzer, titled Fateful Harvest. Unfortunately, Fateful Harvest was published only days before, so it was lost in the media storm around, the horrific events of 9/11.

In 2001, as a second year law student on Law Review I was searching for a topic to write my Comment on. I read Fateful Harvest over one weekend and Knew that I'd found more than a topic for a paper, I'd found a Calling for my legal practice and my life. Duff generously gave me his research notes and his encouragement. My article, was published November, 2003 in the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation and is the first article on this issue in any U.S. law review or journal.

After passing the bar I worked for Patty Martin's organization Safe Food and Fertilizer until economic conditions forced me to find other employment. But I can not stop working on this issue and hope to return to it full time some day when I can afford to. In the meantime, Patty carries on the fight on a shoe string from her kitchen table.