Biosolids in Agriculture: The Strife not with Mother Nature, but Man-Made Chemicals

In Johnson County, Texas, ranchers are facing sickened family members and dying cattle—not from nature, but from man-made chemicals.

Tony Coleman and James Farmer, two local ranchers, noticed rancid odors from their neighbor’s property— stemming from the large, conspicuous piles of smoking fertilizer. Then when heavy rain poured down, the runoff flowed into Coleman’s and Farmer’s land and ponds. It wouldn’t be long before their stock ponds were brimming with dead, floating fish appeared. These are the same ponds their livestock drink from.

The culprit? Their neighbor used “biosolids”—a marketing term for sewage sludge produced by wastewater facilities. Sewage sludge is exactly what you would imagine. It is the by-product of everything that goes down the drain, containing various hazardous medical, household, and industrial chemicals. More bluntly, it’s human fecal matter mixed with a cocktail of thousands of other toxic substances, marketed as fertilizer to farmers far and wide. In just 2018, Texas used or disposed of 473,800 dry tons of sewage sludge.

The fact that the same sewage sludge, which is burned or buried in landfills for disposal, is currently pawned to farmers to use as fertilizer, raises major concerns.

Like many others, Coleman’s and Farmer’s neighbor purchased biosolids as a substitute for fertilizer from Synagro, the newly contracted biosolids manufacturer for the city of Fort Worth. Synagro took over the city’s wastewater management facility 2020. When Synagro launched operations in Fort Worth in 2022, the complaints rolled in. First, there were complaints about the odors from the product and the chemical smell being so nauseating that people couldn’t breathe. Next, there were reports of dead fish. But then came the final straw for farmers who intuited something truly destructive was at play: the overwhelming numbers of dying cattle and livestock.

Dana Ames, the Environmental Crimes Investigator in Johnson County, started to receive phone calls about the effects of biosolids. After investigating, Ames learned that biosolids contain thousands of hazardous chemicals, including PFAS— “forever chemicals” that can persist in humans and the environment for decades.

While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has regulated several pollutants in biosolids for more than 30 years, PFAS are notably absent from this list.

The current required standards for PFAS in drinking water from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are four-parts per trillion (ppt)— four drops of water in 20 Olympic sized swimming pools. PFAS exposure is associated with health effects ranging from kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disease, to birth defects and fertility issues. The EPA drinking water standards presume that PFAS exposure in any amount is dangerous to human health.

Coleman contacted Johnson County Commissioner Larry Wooley regarding the unusual cattle deaths. When Coleman shared the news of a stillborn calf, Wooley and Ames took the calf to test for abnormalities and any presence of forever chemicals. The tests unveiled just how prevalent PFAS chemicals were.

The liver of the stillborn calf held 610,000 ppt of PFOS, a type of forever chemical. A calf—that died within the mother’s womb, never consuming as much as a blade of grass—accumulated 152,500 times more PFAS chemicals than the hazardous level set by the EPA.

Synagro and similar biosolid manufacturers across the United States market their capabilities as a cost-effective solution to sewage sludge. Synagro, the largest recycler of biosolids serving 1,000 municipalities across the United States, marketed its product safe enough for farmers to use as a substitute for fertilizer.

The truth is increasingly hard to ignore.

As Dana Ames puts it “I can’t un-know what I know.”

What’s known is that these biosolids have completely fractured families, farms, and the future of not only what we thought was just in Johnson County but across the entire United States. Several states, including Maine, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, have passed legislation or acted to completely ban the use of biosolids entirely because of their direct linkage illness and death of livestock.

In Texas, state Rep. Helen Kerwin, R-Glen Rose, introduced House Bill 1674. This bill is a mandate  for biosolid manufacturers to test their products for PFAS and publicly disclose the results. Companies found distributing PFAS-contaminated biosolids could face state jail felony charges. A companion bill, Senate Bill 886, was filed in the Texas State Senate by State Senator Kevin Sparks, R-Midland, in late January.

In no way, shape, or form are these products safe. The implications on the lives of American farms and families are already felt. The incoming administrations’ focus on issues impacting the health of the American people and the agenda of RFK Jr. will only help elevate this conversation on the national stage. Conservatives are increasingly stepping forward to defend the health and safety of the everyday American and its farmers.

It’s now up to the states to take the actions necessary to bring the chapter of farmers bearing the costs of malpractice of major corporations to an end.