JOHNSON COUNTY — Tony Coleman acknowledges the indicators all too nicely. A cow drools strings of saliva. Then it begins to limp, every step slower. Then it grows stiff.
Then it’s fast. There’s nothing to be achieved. The cow dies.
Since early 2023, the Grandview rancher has watched greater than 35 of his 150 Black Angus cattle perish. July was particularly brutal. Within the span of every week, Coleman misplaced a 3-week-old calf; a cow; and Little Crimson, a robust bull stuffed with spirit, leaving Coleman with nothing however unanswered questions.
“That is destroying our lives,” Coleman mentioned. “You by no means know what you’re going to get each day if you get down right here.”
Subsequent door, James Farmer has misplaced two calves, and located two of his spouse’s beloved horses toppled to the bottom like dominos, their our bodies swarmed by buzzards.
“It’s arduous for me to inform her, as a result of I do know she’s gonna break down,” he mentioned. “Why are our animals dying? Simply again to again? It by no means ends.”
Months earlier than, the boys mentioned they observed a gag-inducing sewage odor drifting from smoking piles of fertilizer on their neighbor’s property. Heavy rains then washed among the fertilizer onto their land. Quickly after, they mentioned they discovered fish floating lifeless within the inventory ponds their livestock drink from.
They contacted the county with their considerations, triggering a nine-month investigation. That’s when their cattle and horses started to die.
An environmental crime investigator in Johnson County collected samples of the lifeless animals’ tissue and organs, the water they drank from, the soil and the fertilizer that was utilized subsequent door.
After the county obtained check outcomes, the 2 households lastly received their reply: The animals had been killed by one thing within the fertilizer.
The fertilizer had been made with biosolids, a part of an effort to discover a climate-friendly methodology to recycle municipal sewage. However the fertilizer additionally contained artificial and extremely hazardous chemical substances referred to as PFAS, that are present in a whole bunch of family merchandise and have had devastating results on farms and ranches that inadvertently unfold them on their land.
An untold variety of farms and ranches throughout Texas and the remainder of the nation might have additionally used fertilizer made out of sewage tainted with these “ceaselessly chemical substances” — which don’t break down within the setting — with out realizing it.
PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are man-made chemical substances used for the reason that Forties which have a singular means to repel oil and water and resist warmth. They’re utilized in merchandise like nonstick cookware, pizza packing containers, waterproof mascara, rest room paper, soaps and rain jackets.
There are greater than 12,000 sorts of PFAS, however researchers have solely studied the well being results of roughly 150. They’ll contaminate meals and water and construct up within the physique over time. Publicity to sure PFAS has been linked to most cancers, low beginning charges and beginning defects, injury to the liver and immune system, and different severe well being issues. One research discovered the chemical substances within the blood of almost 97% of all Individuals.
Resulting from their widespread use in client merchandise, ceaselessly chemical substances have been discharged into waterways by chemical producers, trucked to landfills with family trash or flushed into metropolis sewers through bathrooms, sinks, showers and washing machines.
Then they find yourself in native wastewater remedy crops the place the solids are separated from sewage. Fertilizer corporations who are sometimes paid to haul these biosolids away course of them into fertilizer that’s bought to farmers and ranchers as a less expensive different to chemical fertilizers.
Numerous Texas wastewater crops have contracts with fertilizer corporations to take their biosolids, together with Fort Value, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Arlington. Nationally, greater than half of sewage sludge was handled and unfold on land, in accordance with one research; 19 billion kilos of it was unfold on American farms between 2016 and 2021, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group present in 2022.
Wastewater remedy and biosolids consultants name this an environmental win-win as a result of these solids don’t go to landfills or incinerators — processes that create greenhouse gasses, which contribute to local weather change.
However no person is aware of how a lot of that fertilizer is contaminated with PFAS, which will be absorbed by crops, consumed by livestock, after which enter the meals provide. There aren’t any necessities to check biosolids for PFAS, or to warn farmers and ranchers that they may very well be utilizing contaminated fertilizer made with biosolids on their land.
“Some individuals are saying, [PFAS contamination] are remoted incidents. No, they’re not. I assure that it is a downside in each single state that makes use of biosolids,” mentioned Kyla Bennett, a former U.S. Environmental Safety Company worker who’s now a science coverage director for the nonprofit group Public Staff for Environmental Accountability.
“The explanation we’re not listening to about it all around the nation, in all 50 states, is as a result of no person’s searching for this downside,” Bennett added.
In response to EPA information analyzed by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group in 2022, an estimated 5% of all crop fields within the U.S. — as much as 20 million acres — might have used fertilizer made with biosolids. In Texas, greater than 157,000 dry metric tons of biosolids-based fertilizer had been utilized to agricultural lands in 2018.
Whereas the EPA just lately set limits for a handful of the chemical substances in ingesting water, these guidelines don’t cowl biosolids.
“The proof is on the market” that PFAS are a well being hazard, Bennett mentioned. “We shouldn’t have to attend [for the EPA to act].”
With out federal rules, some states have taken motion, requiring wastewater remedy crops to check their biosolids for PFAS or setting their very own limits for PFAS in biosolids. Texas is just not amongst them. State environmental regulators mentioned in a press release they’re not required to by legislation.
Coleman and different Johnson County farmers who know their land is contaminated at the moment are confronted with an existential dilemma: Do they promote their cattle and their crops, realizing they’re possible laced with PFAS, or face monetary destroy?
Coleman and Farmer have each determined to not promote any cattle. Which means the boys now run zombie farms. They pay to feed animals and harvest hay that they received’t promote — a single 900-pound steer might promote for $4,800, Coleman mentioned.
“All the things we plant right here is simply sucking this [PFAS] stuff up,” Coleman mentioned. “The cows drink the water and eat the grass. For them there is no such thing as a escaping.”
Nervousness in Johnson County
In February, Johnson County residents packed the courthouse and listened intently as Dana Ames, an environmental crime investigator for the county, and different native officers defined the findings from the nine-month investigation into the noxious smells and lifeless livestock.
Ames, who spent $35,000 of the county’s cash on the investigation and despatched samples to a lab in Pennsylvania, advised residents that the liver of the Coleman’s stillborn calf contained 610,000 elements per trillion of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, one of many many sorts of ceaselessly chemical substances.
The tissue from a calf belonging to Farmer that died every week after being born examined at 320 ppt of PFOS.
At present, there aren’t any federal meals security requirements for PFAS. In Maine, which in 2016 grew to become the primary state to detect PFAS contamination at a farm, state officers issued limits for beef containing PFOS at 3.4 elements per billion and milk containing PFOS at 210 elements per trillion — that means that beef or milk exceeding these ranges needs to be thought-about unsafe for consumption. Maine, which has found 78 contaminated farms and shut 5 of them down, has been the one state to set its personal PFAS limits for meals.
Samples of the pond water the place the ranching households’ livestock drink from ranged from 84 ppt to 1,333 ppt of PFAS.
The county additionally examined the fertilizer their neighbor unfold on his farm and located 27 sorts of PFAS chemical substances, together with 4 out of the 5 the EPA has set limits for in ingesting water.
“These folks had been led to imagine this was protected and an inexpensive fertilizer,” County Commissioner Larry Woolley mentioned on the assembly. “And this isn’t simply remoted to this one incident or a number of counties. This is happening throughout.”
“The quantity of beef and milk that’s gone into the meals chain, who is aware of what their PFAS ranges are? The extent of victimization is widespread,” he added.
The Colemans, Farmer and 4 different native farmers have sued Synagro, the Maryland-based firm that produced the biosolids-based fertilizer utilized on their neighbor’s fields, and Renda Environmental, a Texas-based fertilizer firm that bought to the neighbor earlier than Synagro. The lawsuit claims the businesses knew in regards to the contaminants within the fertilizer and failed to supply ample warnings to its clients.
Synagro denies the allegations. Kip Cleverley, a spokesperson with the corporate, mentioned the corporate did its personal testing on the land the place the fertilizer was utilized and preliminary outcomes discovered PFAS ranges within the single digits elements per trillion within the floor water. The corporate didn’t present its check outcomes to the Tribune, saying its evaluation was nonetheless in progress.
“The info strongly means that the farm the place biosolids had been used couldn’t be a supply for the PFAS allegedly discovered on the plaintiffs’ farms,” Cleverley mentioned.
Renda Environmental advised the Tribune the corporate doesn’t touch upon pending litigation.
In a separate lawsuit filed in opposition to the EPA in June by Public Staff for Environmental Accountability on behalf of the farmers, the group claimed the company did not implement restrictions on PFAS in biosolids regardless of realizing the well being dangers posed by the chemical substances. Johnson County later joined the go well with.
“My coronary heart breaks [for the farmers],” mentioned Bennett, the group’s science coverage director. “It may very well be years till the EPA units biosolids rules. Someone wants to carry their toes to the fireplace … farmers are dropping their livelihoods.”
The biosolids used to create the fertilizer that allegedly contaminated the Colemans’ and Farmers’ farms got here from Fort Value’s Village Creek Water Reclamation Facility, which treats sewage from 1 million folks, many industries and 23 communities in North Texas. It generates between 27,000 to 31,000 tons of biosolids per 12 months.
Mary Gugliuzza, spokesperson for Fort Value Water, mentioned the fertilizer pellets produced by Synagro meet EPA and Texas Fee on Environmental High quality necessities.
Gugliuzza added the town had examined a few of its biosolids for PFAS though it’s not required. These outcomes confirmed PFAS within the biosolids, however Gugliuzza mentioned that’s the case at wastewater services throughout the nation.
Synagro has contracts with greater than 1,000 municipal wastewater crops, industrial, and agricultural clients in North America — together with Fort Value — to show biosolids, which one worker described as resembling chocolate milk, into fertilizer that it markets as nutrient wealthy and environmentally pleasant.
In 2022 Synagro processed 6.5 million tons of biosolids nationwide.
“The [EPA] has not advised that any modifications in biosolids administration is required due to the presence of hint quantities of PFAS,” Cleverly, the corporate spokesperson, mentioned.
In September, the EPA responded to the lawsuit saying it has full discretion over which pollution to manage beneath federal legislation — so it might’t be sued.
However the company is now learning the presence of PFAS in wastewater and sewage sludge nationally and conducting a danger evaluation on the usage of biosolids and sewage sludge containing the 2 most generally used and studied ceaselessly chemical substances — PFOA and PFOS — specializing in well being dangers by means of publicity to soil, water, crops, meat and dairy. It expects to publish the outcomes by the tip of this 12 months, which is able to decide whether or not new federal guidelines are vital.
Who needs to be accountable for eradicating ceaselessly chemical substances?
In Texas, most biosolids find yourself in a landfill. However the remaining is diverted for agricultural use in Texas.
At San Antonio’s wastewater remedy plant, water is faraway from sewage sludge by utilizing a machine that squeezes it between two tensioned belts or by spreading it in drying beds so the solar evaporates the moisture. As soon as it’s dried to a crumb-like texture, the biosolids are piled into black mountains then transported to different services the place two Texas compost corporations flip it into fertilizer.
Pitched as a cheap method to enhance soil fertility, biosolids have been utilized to land within the U.S. for the reason that Nineteen Seventies. Scientists say they include nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that helps crops develop.
The EPA solely requires wastewater remedy crops to check biosolids for heavy metals and pathogens that may be dangerous to well being.
If the EPA points new restrictions on PFAS in biosolids, utilities worry they’re more likely to bear the accountability for eradicating the chemical substances from wastewater.
“If we’re required to deal with a specific chemical that’s not lined in the way in which you already deal with, you need to design a complete new system,” mentioned Ed Guzman, the senior vice chairman and chief authorized and ethics officer on the San Antonio Water System. “You need to put it in place and that every one takes time. It takes cash.”
The price of elimination is important: A 2023 report by the Minnesota Air pollution Management Company discovered that it will value between $2.7 million and $18 million per pound to take away and destroy PFAS from municipal wastewater, relying on facility dimension, and between $1 million and $2.7 million per pound of PFAS faraway from biosolids.
Adam Krantz, the CEO of the Nationwide Affiliation of Clear Water Businesses, a bunch representing municipal wastewater remedy companies, mentioned the price of remediation may very well be handed right down to water utility clients, however argues that “polluters ought to pay.””It truly is the company polluter that should foot the invoice for this because the wrongdoer,” he mentioned.
Others, like Janine Burke-Wells, govt director for the North East Biosolids & Residuals Affiliation, which represents wastewater remedy services and biosolids producers, mentioned that the accountability to curb PFAS ought to fall on everybody.
“Until we actually remove all of the sources of PFAS there’s all the time going to be a background stage as a result of [PFAS] is in every little thing,” Burke-Wells mentioned.
One county doing what it might
In Johnson County, Woolley drives his silver pickup down rural roads, mentioning hay bales and miles of milo grain, corn and wheat — crops the county commissioner says have been blessed by heavy rainfall earlier this 12 months.
Woolley, a former agriculture trainer who moved to Grandivew in 1982, says he’s spent sleepless nights worrying about PFAS’ impacts on ranching households on this county of 180,000 residents.
“I lay awake at evening pondering of the magnitude of this entire deal. It’s simply loopy,” Woolley mentioned. “That is simply the tip of the iceberg. I feel there’s gonna be a lot public outcry on this … it’s gonna be arduous for our state officers to disregard that.”
Following the county’s investigation, Woolley led the cost to go a neighborhood decision urging farmers to cease utilizing biosolids on their land.
The decision referred to as for Fort Value to cease sending its biosolids to fertilizer corporations till the TCEQ exams them for the presence of PFAS and requested the EPA to set limits on PFAS in biosolids. The decision additionally referred to as on state lawmakers to manage the applying of biosolids-based fertilizer on farmland or give energy to counties to take action.
“That’s the arduous half,” Woolley mentioned. “We don’t have authority to ban biosolids.”
In July, neighboring Ellis County handed the same decision calling for regulation and laws to limit the applying of biosolids on farms and ranches till additional testing is completed. Since then, Kaufman, Henderson, Somervell and Sensible counties have achieved the identical.
Woolley has traveled across the state to sound the alarm about PFAS at conferences for county officers. He mentioned he and his workers are getting ready to go to Austin to satisfy with state lawmakers in the course of the subsequent legislative session. He hopes they are going to introduce new payments that can handle PFAS contamination in biosolids, together with giving counties cash to check for the contaminants, and require TCEQ to check biosolids statewide for ceaselessly chemical substances.
Up to now, there have been no payments filed by state lawmakers relating to PFAS contamination in biosolids forward of the legislative session that begins in January.
In 2021, Michigan started requiring all municipal wastewater remedy crops to check their biosolids for PFAS earlier than spreading them on agricultural land. The state additionally started prohibiting the applying of biosolids containing greater than 150 elements per billion of PFOS on agricultural land. Since then, the state has lowered that threshold to 100 ppb and added one other sort of PFAS to the checklist, PFOA.
What consultants consult with because the “Michigan mannequin” has now been embraced by different states together with California, Wisconsin and Washington. Connecticut and Maine have banned the usage of biosolids on agricultural fields.
Ellen Mallory, a professor of sustainable agriculture at The College of Maine, mentioned state response has been essential given the shortage of requirements on the federal stage.
“The necessary half right here is it’s actually arduous to have any response to PFAS contamination if we don’t have any requirements. So a state like Texas that has no requirements, what do you do? How do you assist farmers decide if their meals is protected or not?” she mentioned.
In the meantime, Tony Coleman and his spouse are nonetheless watching their livestock die. They pack lifeless cattle in a giant cooler, load them onto a trailer and drive 140 miles to a laboratory at Faculty Station the place vet technicians carry out a necropsy and take away tissue to be examined for PFAS.
The couple each work two jobs and are searching for a 3rd. They’re fearful they’ve misplaced the power to make a residing off their very own land.
“We are able to’t consciously promote you a aspect of beef and then you definitely eat it and also you get sick. What sort of folks does that make us?” Coleman mentioned.
Disclosure: San Antonio Water System has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full checklist of them right here.
This text initially appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/12/02/texas-farmers-pfas-forever-chemicals-biosolids-fertilizer/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and interesting Texans on state politics and coverage. Study extra at texastribune.org.
Photograph: Tony and Karen Coleman stand over a plot of land the place they buried a deceased calf and bull on their property in Grandview on Aug. 5, 2024. Credit score: Azul Sordo for The Texas Tribune
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