Today marks the 30th birthday of Chez Panisse Café (the downstairs restaurant celebrates 39 years in August), and the Organic Consumers Association is using the occasion to make some noise outside the restaurant with regard to Alice Waters’s alleged, once-removed support of calling toxic sewage “organic compost.” The controversy stems from an underling of Alice’s, Francesca Vietor, who serves as both the Exec Director of the Chez Panisse Foundation and as Vice President of San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
The PUC stands accused of giving away its “organic compost” to schools and other local gardens, without acknowledging that said “organic compost” contains human waste and carcinogens. They cite evidence that suggests that SF’s compost contains, “hundreds of dangerous pathogens, toxic heavy metals, flame-retardants, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, pharmaceutical drugs and other hazardous chemicals coming from residential drains, storm water runoff, hospitals, and industrial plants.”
As they state in their press release, the Organic Consumers Association plans to protest outside Chez Panisse today starting at noon.
OCA Director Ronnie Cummins in a letter of protest to Alice: “Considering that the sludge was given to several local schools for use on their educational gardens, your work with the Edible Schoolyard should especially elicit your concern.”
Alice, for her part, says she looks forward to “reviewing the science” but she still supports Vietor, who shall remain innocent until proven guilty of shilling sludge.
Update: Apparently only two protesters showed up. The Chez Panisse Foundation has issued a statement slamming the OCA, demanding a retraction of false statements as well as an apology. They say that Ms. Vietor has already put the PUC’s compost program on indefinite hold and is still seeking scientific evidence of the contents of their compost, and that the OCA refuses to share their evidence.
OCA Protests at Chez Panisse Restaurant over Alice Waters’ Refusal to Denounce Growing Food on Toxic Sewage Sludge [OCA via SFist]
Earlier: Caitlin Flanagan Doubts Alice Waters [Grub Street]
