August 11, 2026 | Film review by John Stauber for Organic Consumers Association
I have just viewed a powerful new documentary film: The Sludge War, by Galassia Grassetto. For the very first time a major documentary exposes the massive, ongoing poisoning of every state in America, as each year billions of pounds of toxic sewage sludge is spread on crops, pastures, gardens, parks and lawns, disguised as ‘harmless organic fertilizer and compost.’
The film began with a personal discovery, when Galassia learned that her own community in California had been built on land contaminated by sewage sludge. From there, she embarked on a five-year investigation, traveling across 10 states to uncover the national scope of the story.
In previewing The Sludge War I agreed not to give away its details, since the film has not been publicly released yet, but I can tell you, as the investigator who first exposed the toxic sludge scam in 1995, that this film will catalyze public awareness and action like nothing before it, if millions of people have the opportunity to view it.
For now, you can watch the film’s trailer at www.TheSludgeWar.com. You can also find details about filmmaker Galassia Grassetto’s unique national tour, which currently includes multiple screenings across New York. Galassia is bringing the film directly to affected communities, including a small rural town in upstate New York where wells and land became contaminated by large-scale, government-approved sewage sludge dumping. After learning about the contamination, the community fought back and passed a local ban.
The real horror that communities like this are confronting in their sludge war is not unique, but it has been well hidden for decades by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a massive government/industry PR offensive and coverup.
Starting over 30 years ago the EPA and the multi-billion dollar sewage sludge industry have spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars on slick PR to deny and hide this sludge war, to intimidate and defeat the grassroots farmers and communities fighting back, and most of all to make it invisible in the media.
Tens of billions of pounds of persistent toxic chemicals, viruses, bacteria, molds, carcinogens, mutagens, pesticides, herbicides, PFAS, PCBs, dioxins and more are dumped in the smelly dark entropic sludge that the EPA officially calls “biosolids” and promotes as environmentally friendly fertilizer and compost. The Sludge War film, for the very first time, blows the lid off this coverup by featuring its victims who are fighting back, the scientists who have been targeted and punished for telling the truth, and by revealing graphically the massive invisible, long-term poisoning that affects tens of millions as our air, water, animals, soil, food and our very bodies are contaminated by intentionally spread sewage sludge.
EPA and the sludge industry have recently taken publicity hits because the highly dangerous PFAS poisoning resulting in large part from sewage sludge has given them deeply negative publicity as the news media runs stories world-wide about the millions of people exposed to just this one type of persistent poison in sewage sludge. Mass chemical poisoning grabs headlines when it destroys lives and businesses. But the PFAS scandal is just the tip of the toxic sludge mountain. The EPA and their allies in industry and government have stepped up their PR campaigns and are managing to keep a lid on the issue, sounding concerned and doing nothing, while talking as little as possible about its source, sewage sludge.
The Sludge War film is their worst nightmare. It is an Oscar-worthy documentary that tells the story in gripping detail with a big picture context: sewage plants are really toxic sludge plants, producing tens of billions of pounds of toxic waste annually that is deceptively dumped onto farms and communities, greenwashed as ‘harmless, safe fertilizer and compost’, hailed by EPA and its PR allies as a wonderful example of recycling at its best.
Today as I write this Galassia Grassetto is driving her Sludge War van from city to town in the Northeast, meeting with sludge victims who have become grassroots sludge fighters, informing the public about their battles, and energizing the environmental health movement from the grassroots up. They and all of us are up against a brutally effective combination of government and industry money, lawyers, lobbyists and PR flacks. Right now if you want to see the film you need to go to www.TheSludgeWar.com to find where she is taking it next. This stunning, shocking and ultimately empowering movie pulls the curtain back on the deadly “biosolids scam” poisoning America.
TAKE ACTION
We need to build awareness of The Sludge War documentary so that millions have the opportunity to view it. We each can contact local theaters and film festivals, asking them to make it available to their audiences. If you would like to bring a screening of The Sludge War to your community, please send a message through the contact form on the <www.sludgewar.com> website.
Galassia Grassetto has devoted five years of her life to making this movie and is now personally taking her film across America to communities featured in it. She travels in her mobile office that is also a travelling billboard, as you can see in the photo below. Her vehicle needs a name. Please email: thesludgewarvehicle@yahoo.com with ideas. She’ll choose the winning entry and the winner will receive an official Sludge War T-Shirt. Got an idea? Share it with her.
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John Stauber co-authored “Toxic Sludge Is Good For You!” in 1995 after founding The Center for Media and Democracy and its publication PRwatch.
