OK, so I wasn't sure how to title this, and I wanted your attention. So my title is justified as this post concerns wastewater from treatment plants, and it's intended use.

So here I am in a little somewhat isolated town living 20 in the past from everywhere else. This,(as some may know) is cattle country. The majority of all the farming in this area, is for cattle feed.

I run into what I consider to be a possible serious question here. As I'm sure this is being done elsewhere, maybe there is further info out there. Locally we are in a drought. We get irrigation water from the lake, but the levels are way to low for this now, so the majority of farmland will hardly do squat this year. This provides for a delima for the local feedlot, that fattens cattle before sending to market. They have to have substantial feed and silage on hand to support the business and local area. In comes our local sewage plant in town, that sends many acre feet of "treated water" out to run towards the river.
EPA has been in, permits granted, test wells dug. Now part of this water is being used to irrigate fields to grow silage for the feedlot.

My surprise, is that everyone looks at it like a gift horse, and no one seems to be questioning it. I have seen reports on very advanced waste water treatment plants, and the studies show a good level of pharmacuticals remaining in the water, that are too small to be filtered out. (keep in mind here, these are ADVANCED treatment plants)
So, our little plant here can hardly be doing the job as a newer advanced one. Before I retired (semi) I was the operator for our rural water district, and I was at this plant often, as we bought our water from the city. In my opinion, they seemed to be accident prone. They are just now getting an upgrade.

BUT, the question here is, this water is being used to irrigate crops for cattle feed. Which will be used as silage. Meaning the crop will be cut wet and green, chopped into tiny pieces, and piled up and covered to ferment. Then fed to cattle in pens, daily.

So what are the effects, possibilities, of transmitting unknown pharmacological waste in a cycle here? How much would the plants soak up? How much can grow further in the fermentation of the silage? Can any of this then be transferred to the cows by eating it daily? Is there the possibility of mutations along this process?

with this being said I'd have to say that shit tastes better than I thought it would.........

i think most people in the western world will have high chemical toxin levels in their system because of all the chemicals that get in to the water supply.its aways struck me as strange that you can pore bleach down the toilet and of it goes to a water treatment plant and bingo,its now fit for drinking but they cant put water pipelines accross africa and turn sea water in to drinking water.well lets just say they can but they dont

Thats a great question about the Chemicals (antidepressants, other medicines, etc..)
Since the particulate isnt large enough to filter..or else it wouldnt make it into the groundwater..

But for the sewage part, myunderstanding was that thorough cleaning would help with the ecoli risk AS LONG AS the filtering process included heat treatments as well..

Damn..intriguing but sorta scary at the same time,
not knowing these answers.
If it is safe, its brilliant..

I just cant see them being able to filter medicines and hormones out though...

Remember

Urine contains ammonia and we've all been pissing in toilets for years...

They've found a way to turn this back into drinkable water, so as far as the chemicals and hormones go, at least we know a very common chemical ammonia is removed via water purification facilities....

AP: Drugs found in drinking water
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-drugs-tap-water_N.htm

oh yea i ve heard all about that ( for a while now)

I'm just not finding enough info available. So, on the surface, this could be questionable without further study.
The variables here:
how much can be absorbed into the plants, if any? Are mutations possible at this level?

As silage ferments, the temperatures encourage bacteria growth. Could any potential toxins or adverse organisms survive and multiply?

Further yet, after consumption by the cows, what may be chances for mutations or infections?

We've all seen what a mad cow scare can do to the industry, and the impact on a nation and economy. So these are very real concerns, without proper information and study available. I really don't believe the treatment plant here can compare to a more advanced on in a larger city.

Two things come to mind here - one is that in my experience, water treatment plants, as you point out, are prone to accidents and even if everything is running perfectly, they are sometimes surprised by excess rainwater and get flooded, letting the excess water run off along with a good deal of untreated sewage (I hope the newer plants are protected against this).
The other thing that I would be worried about is mad cow disease. The prion protiens that cause this are very strong and can only be eliminated by heating the water or sewage to about 70 degrees celsius, otherwise they will survive and be recycled in anything that digests them. Here in Denmark we looked in to using treated sewage for fertilizer but it just wasn't economically viable because of the energy required to heat it to 70 degrees. We also had the discussion of pharmacutical remains but that dissapeared when we realized the project was being stopped.
Also, we get all our water from below ground, so we are very carefull of what we spread on the surface as it will show up in about 50 years when it filters down to our drinking water.
Good luck eating shit - try it with ketchup.