'This is Chernobyl': Texas ranchers say 'forever chemicals' in (human-)waste-based fertilizers ruined their land

[highplainsdem]

Investigation done by a Dallas ABC affiliate:

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/investigations/texas-johnson-county-ranchers-forever-chemicals-pfas-fort-worth/287-85b7d4ce-c694-4c2a-b221-78bd94d6c8f6

-snip-

According to multiple studies and the Environmental Protection Agency, all humans consume PFAS chemicals, which are used to make all sorts of products including shampoo, carpet, frying pans and even makeup. The chemicals end up in our human waste, which is then sent to a wastewater treatment facility. During the treatment, biosolids are created.

Those biosolids, also called sewage sludge, can be used to make fertilizer, which is what a company called Synagro does.

-snip-

Detective Ames said Eurofins Lancaster Laboratory tested the tissue of the cows, fish and horses that died on Coleman’s ranch. She said they found extremely high levels of PFAS in animal tissue. Tests also found it in the well water in Johnson County. Eurofins is a TCEQ state approved certified lab.

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In 2022, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection banned the use of the biosolids fertilizer after farms were contaminated with high levels of PFAS and animals and fish died.

-snip-

What we've done to our environment, and ourselves...

[Wonder Why]

1. Interesting. In my town, we went on a tour of the sewage treatment plant about 15 years ago and they had a

building that had blocks of solid waste that could not be released into the water. They said that they tried to sell it as fertilizer but nobody was buying it so it was stored at that time. Wonder if they ever found some sleazy company that was willing to take it.

[MagickMuffin]

2. I had a friend who worked at TRA Trinity River Authority

His crew were growing tomatoes and management told them to dig them up. The plants looked incredibly healthy but I guess TRA didn’t want any liability if someone got sick from them.

He would give us tours every now and then. Fascinating process.

[Tumbulu]

3. They tried to force organic farms to accept sewage sludge back in the early 90's

and we all worked extremely hard to make sure the organic standards forbid the use of sewage sludge on farms.

So, know that anything grown on a farm here in the US that has been certified organic by an accredited USDA certifier has never had those materials applied to them.

[ananda]

5. Thank you

Organic ia ll I eat these days

[Hekate]

4. And people wonder about the soaring rate of autism... IMHO it's not the vaccines

[Ponietz]

6. Endocrine disruption, I suspect, has much to do with our current political landscape

[Mariana]

10. "IMHO it's not the vaccines"

That's not a matter of opinion. it has been proven over and over again that there is no link between vaccines and autism.

[Hekate]

15. I figured that out decades ago when I read an article about rocket fuel leaking into the aquifers

Around the same time I read about tests of human amniotic fluid where scientists counted over 200 chemical contaminants before they stopped counting.

Decades ago.

My source: The Los Angeles Times, to which I subscribe.

[Oneironaut]

12. No. That's not why.

FYI this is really annoying to see as an autistic person. Most of the “soaring rates” is due to better testing and awareness.

Sorry to bite your head off, but, this is a pet peeve. We don’t know what causes autism atm, and, there’s no evidence it’s environmental.

[LeftInTX]

7. That stuff is everywhere. And if you get cow or horse manure, it's contaminated with broadleaf herbicides.

[Warpy]

8. There are 2 strains of bacteria that break down PFAS

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bacteria-break-down-pfas-forever-chemicals (Short article, no alphabet soup)

Treating the solids if the bacteria won't survive the settling pond might be the best idea, along with getting that shit out of things like shampoo, makeup (stupid microbeads), etc. Neither strain of bacteria is particularly pathogenic, AFAIK.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. Thanks! Maybe we'll find some that works on non-chlorinated PFAS someday.

[Warpy]

16. Wherever there is a niche to fill, something evolves to fill it

like the bacteria thriving in the lethally radioactive groundwater at Hanford.

Plastics are made from oil, so there is abundant energy to provide food for bugs.

[OldBaldy1701E]

11. Interesting.

And, how many of those same ranchers were complacent in allowing that crap out in the first place? It is not like we were unaware of the dangers of certain plastics and their presence in nature. Or, was it that they didn't want to know?

(That is the usual issue when this crap comes up. "I didn't know!" No, the information was out there. You just didn't want to know because it would mean losing a few things that make your life easier, at last according to the manufacturers. And, we cannot have that, now can we?)

[BoRaGard]

13. Wow

Corporate (R) toxic crapola up the wazoo

[ck4829]

14. This is what you voted for, Texas farmers

Your land is ruined, but hey, you got to irritate the libs.

[LeftInTX]

17. It's happening all over.

About half the sewage sludge in the U.S. is made into fertilizer, according to the National Biosolids Data Project. And since 2016, 19.1 billion pounds of sludge have been applied to American farm fields, according to EPA data analyzed by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG). EWG estimates that 5% of all crop fields in the U.S. — up to 20 million acres — use biosolids as fertilizer.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/03/30/boston-massachusetts-pfas-forever-chemicals-sludge-deer-island

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/12/sewage-us-crop-farming-lawsuit-pfas

Prior to wastewater treatment, there was the Sewer Farm:
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_farm

Recycling biosolids seemed like an environmentally friendly idea when it first started. It started in Milwaukee in 1926.
Milorganite has been around forever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milorganite

Milorganite is a brand of biosolids fertilizer produced by treating sewage sludge by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.[1] The term is a portmanteau of the term Milwaukee Organic Nitrogen. The sewer system of the District collects municipal wastewater from the Milwaukee metropolitan area. After settling, wastewater is treated with microbes to break down organic matter at the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The byproduct sewage sludge is produced. This is heat-dried with hot air in the range of 900–1,200 °F (482–649 °C), which heats the sewage sludge to at least 176 °F (80 °C) to kill pathogens. The material is then pelletized and marketed throughout the United States under the name Milorganite. The result is recycling of the nitrogen and phosphorus from the waste-stream as fertilizer. The treated wastewater is discharged to Lake Michigan.

Milorganite's roots began in 1911, when local socialist politicians were elected on a platform calling for construction of a wastewater treatment plant to protect against water borne pathogens.[3][9] As raising taxes for public health was relatively controversial in the early 1900s,[citation needed] producing an organic fertilizer as a means of partially offsetting its operating cost was proposed. With the help of researchers in the College of Agriculture at the University of Wisconsin, the use of waste solids in the form of activated sludge as a source of fertilizer had been developed in the early 20th century.[10] Experiments showed that heat-dried activated sludge pellets "compared favorably with standard organic materials such as dried blood, tankage, fish scrap, and cottonseed meal."[11]

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's Jones Island Plant had the largest wastewater treatment capacity of any in the world when constructed in 1925.[12] It was the first plant in the United States to succeed in using the activated sludge treatment process to produce fertilizer.[8][13][14] The Plant has been designated as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.[13][15][16]

Milorganite made its debut in 1926 as the first pelletized fertilizer in the United States,[7] with sales directed at golf courses,[4] turf farms and flower growers.[17] The brand was popularized during the 1930s and 1940s before inorganic urea became available to homeowners after WWII.