For decades, farmers across America have been encouraged by the federal government to spread municipal sewage as fertilizer on millions of acres of farmland. It’s rich in nutrients and helps keep sludge out of landfills.
But a growing body of research suggests that this black sludge, formed from sewage runoff from homes and factories, may contain concentrations of chemicals thought to increase the risk of certain types of cancer and cause birth defects and developmental delays in children.
Known as forever chemicals because of their longevity, these toxic pollutants are now being detected in farmland across the country, sometimes at high levels, including in Texas, Maine, Michigan, New York and Tennessee. In some cases, the chemicals are suspected of sickening or killing animals and are showing up in crops. Farmers are starting to worry about their own health.
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The scale of the national contamination of farmland by these chemicals—used in everything from microwave popcorn bags and firefighting equipment to nonstick pans and stain-resistant carpets—is only now beginning to become apparent. Lawsuits have been filed against fertilizer suppliers and the Environmental Protection Agency, alleging that the agency has failed to regulate the chemicals, known as PFAS.
In Michigan, one of the first states to investigate chemicals in manure, authorities closed a farm where tests found particularly high concentrations in the soil and cattle grazing on the land. This year, the state banned the property from ever being used for agriculture again. Michigan has not conducted widespread testing on other farms, in part because of concerns about the economic impact on the agricultural sector.
Maine banned the use of sewage sludge on agricultural land in 2022. It was the first state to do so and is the only state to systematically test farms for the chemical. Researchers have found contamination on at least 68 of more than 100 farms checked so far, with about 1,000 sites still to be tested.
“Investigating PFAS is like opening Pandora’s box,” said Nancy McBrady, associate deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture.
In Texas, several farmers blamed chemicals for cattle, horses and catfish deaths on their farms after sewage sludge was used as fertilizer on neighboring farmlands. A lawsuit filed this year against Synagro, the company that supplied the fertilizer, said levels of a PFAS chemical in surface water exceeded 1,300 parts per trillion. Although not directly comparable, the EPA’s drinking water standard for the two PFAS chemicals is 4 parts per trillion.
“We were desperate to understand what was going on, what was taking our cows from us,” said Tony Coleman, who raises cattle on a 315-acre ranch in Johnson County, Texas, with his wife, Karen, and mother, Patsy Schultz.
“When we got the test results, everything started to make sense,” Coleman said.
Synagro, which is owned by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said it “vehemently denies” the allegations. It said its preliminary study of the levels of PFAS applied to the sludge showed numbers “sharply lower” than the plaintiffs claimed, such as less than 4 parts per trillion in surface water.
“Synagro does not produce PFAS or use them in our processes,” said Kip Cleverley, the company’s chief sustainability officer. “In other words, like our wastewater service partners, we are a passive recipient.”
At the center of the crisis is the EPA, which has promoted the use of sewage as fertilizer for decades. The agency regulates pathogens and heavy metals in sewage, but not PFAS, even as evidence of their health risks and presence in sewage mounts.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently investigating the risks posed by PFAS in manure sludge (what the industry calls biosolids) to determine whether new rules are necessary.
The agency continues to encourage their use on farmland, but has begun taking action elsewhere. In April, it ordered utilities to reduce PFAS levels in drinking water to near zero and designated two types of chemicals that need to be cleaned up by polluters as hazardous substances. The agency now says there is no safe level of PFAS for humans.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in a statement that the government was working to “better understand the extent of farms that may have used contaminated biosolids and develop targeted interventions to support farmers and protect the food supply.”
Studies show that PFAS can enter the human food chain through contaminated agricultural products and farm animals.
It’s hard to know how much manure sludge is used nationwide, and EPA data is incomplete. The fertilizer industry says more than 2 million dry tons were used on 4.6 million acres of farmland in 2018. It also estimates that farmers are permitted to use sewage sludge on about 70 million acres, or about one-fifth of all U.S. farmland.
Sewage sludge is also applied to landscaping, golf courses and woodlands. And it has been used to fill old mines.
“It’s clear that testing should be done anywhere biosolids are applied,” said Christopher Higgins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. “And any industrial facility that discharges waste to municipal wastewater facilities should probably be tested.”
Scientists say that sludge fertilizer has benefits. It contains plant nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. It helps reduce the use of fertilizers made from fossil fuels. It reduces millions of tons of sludge that would otherwise be burned and cause pollution or decompose and go to landfills, producing greenhouse gases.
“All the chemicals that society produces and is exposed to are in that sewage,” says Rolf Halden, a professor of environmental biotechnology at Arizona State University and one of the first researchers to study PFAS in sewage sludge.
The Smell of Death
Dana Ames, an environmental crimes investigator with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, has experience working missing persons cases and gruesome murders, but her first encounter with the mud manure still came as a shock.
A farmer had plowed mud onto his field and two neighboring farmers had complained about the smell. He set out to investigate.
“I rolled down the windows and almost threw up in my car,” he said. “I’m used to the smell of death. This was worse than death.”
That call led to a remarkable investigation into PFAS contamination of sludge spread in his district, which Ames oversaw. He took a sample of the manure and found it contained 27 different types of PFAS, at least 13 of which matched PFAS in soil and water samples from two farms.
And when a calf was stillborn on the Coleman farm, he took the carcass to a lab at Texas A&M University, where tests revealed its liver was full of PFAS: 610,000 parts per trillion.
In February, Ames and other local officials held an emergency meeting about their findings. “This is not limited to just this county or multiple counties. This is happening everywhere,” said Larry Woolley, a county commissioner. “And the amount of beef and dairy that’s going into the food chain, who knows what the PFAS levels are.”
This year, the Colemans and their neighbors, James Farmer and Robin Alessi, sued biosolids maker Synagro and the EPA, arguing that the agency failed to regulate chemicals in fertilizers.
They stopped sending their cattle to market, saying they didn’t want to endanger public health. Their days are now filled with long hours caring for a herd they thought they would never send back.
They are taking on extra jobs and using their savings to cover the costs. They fear they have lost their livelihoods forever.
“A lot of people are still afraid to talk about it,” Coleman said. “But for us, it’s all about being honest. I don’t want to hurt anyone else, even if we feel like people are hurting us.”
Mud Mountains
When the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began promoting sludge as a nutrient-rich fertilizer decades ago, it seemed like a good idea.
The 1972 Clean Water Act required industrial plants to send their wastewater to treatment plants rather than dumping it into rivers and streams. This was a win for the environment, but it also created a lot of new sludge that had to go somewhere.
This also meant contaminants like PFAS were getting into sewage and eventually fertilizer.
The sludge that allegedly contaminated the Colemans’ farm came from the Fort Worth Water District, which treats sewage for more than 1.2 million people, city records show. The facility also accepts waste from industries such as aviation, defense, oil and gas and automotive manufacturing. Synagro takes the sludge, treats it (not for PFAS, as required by law) and then distributes it as fertilizer.
Wastewater treatment involves multiple steps, including the use of bacteria that remove contaminants. The plant controls heavy metals and pathogens that can be harmful to health. However, traditional wastewater plants like these are not designed to monitor or remove PFAS.
Steven Nutter, environmental program manager at Fort Worth’s Village Creek Water Recovery Facility, said the facility complies with all federal and state standards. “The ball is in the EPA’s court,” he said.
The EPA’s own researchers found high levels in sewage sludge. And in the agency’s most recent study of biosolids, PFAS were nearly universal. A 2018 report by the EPA inspector general accused the agency of failing to properly regulate biosolids and said it “reduced staff and resources in the biosolids program over time.”
Synagro acknowledges in its latest sustainability report that PFASs are a problem. “One of the challenges for our industry,” it says, “is the potential for unwanted substances in biosolids, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.”
But banning sludge compost is not the way forward, biosolids industry groups say. Maine’s ban has led the state to move more sewage out of state because local landfills won’t allow it, said Janine Burke-Wells, executive director of the North East Biosolids & Residuals Association, which represents producers.
He said regulators should focus on limiting PFAS that end up in wastewater, either by banning their use in consumer products or requiring industries to clean their wastewater before sending it to treatment plants. “There’s just not enough money in the world to eventually get it out,” he said.
Figuring out how to address this crisis is a challenge many states are currently facing. In addition to a manure sludge ban and farmland testing, Maine is also offering financial assistance to affected farmers, helping them transition away from growing food. Using the land to grow other crops, such as flowers, or installing solar panels are some of the options being encouraged.
Michigan took a different approach.
There, regulators tested only about 15 farms that received manure sludge known to be contaminated. Instead, Michigan focused on working with companies to reduce PFAS levels in their wastewater and banned the use of sludge with high levels of the chemicals.
The state acknowledges the risks of more testing to its farmers’ livelihoods. “We’re very, very conscious of the implications of testing and potentially damaging the economic success of a farm,” said Abigail Hendershott, who heads Michigan’s PFAS Action Response Team. “We want to make sure we have really good data before we go out and start disrupting things.”
That’s small consolation for Jason Grostic, a third-generation cattle rancher in Brighton, Michigan, whose property was found to be contaminated with muddy manure in 2020. The state put a health warning on his beef, devastating his farm overnight.
“These things aren’t just happening on my land,” Grostic said. “People are scared to death that they’re going to lose their farms, just like I am.”
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