Forget It Jake, It's Baltimore

Texas Farms Sue Baltimore County Company over PFAS in "Biosolids" Fertilizer Texas Farms Detail PFAS Contamination in Lawsuit Over Biosolids Fertilizer

With regulation of sewage-sludge fertilizer mostly unsettled nationally, a pair of Texas farms are suing the waste recycling and biosolids company Synagro for selling fertilizer that the farmers allege has affected their health, contaminated their water supply and left their fields and livestock with dangerous testing levels of "forever chemicals."

The farms involve five individuals who live or own property on the same county road near Grandview, Texas, about a half hour south of Fort Worth, Texas.

Their lawsuit, filed in Baltimore County, Maryland, where Synagro is based, alleges that their farms were contaminated after Synagro provided a neighboring farmer with a biosolid fertilizer that contained potentially dangerous levels of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS chemicals. The lawsuit alleges the volumes of PFAS chemicals "poisoned them, killed their livestock, polluted their water and rendered their property worthless," according to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which arranged laboratory testing of the farms' soil, water and dead livestock.

The PFAS levels on both farms involved in the lawsuit are significantly higher than EPA drinking water standards. Both farms have stopped selling meat because they are concerned about the effects on human health.
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Kyla Bennett, PEER's science policy director, pointed out that Maine outlawed land application of biosolids after more than 60 farms were found to have unsafe levels of PFAS contamination. She also pointed to the need for EPA to issue rules that will protect farmers and consumers from toxic exposure. "This lawsuit against Synagro will likely be the first of many," she said.

EPA, earlier this month, announced a proposal to list at least nine PFAS chemicals as hazardous materials. Along with protecting drinking water supplies, the rules would focus on cleaning up soil and groundwater contamination.

The lawsuit details that Synagro has a contract with the city of Fort Worth, Texas, to take sewage sludge and convert it to a fertilizer application. Synagro produces about 26,000 tons of fertilizer, which is then sold to landowners in 12 counties. Synagro built a $59 million biosolids processing facility in the area to further process the sewage sludge into compost, fertilizer pellets or soil conditioners.

It's not clear to me whether the biosolids involved in the contamination of the farm fields originated in Austin, or the the Synagro facility on Back River, Baltimore's private sewer river.  My guess would be that given the relatively low value of the shit, and the high cost of transport, that it comes from the more local Austin facility. 

It seems to me that concern over PFAS is new enough that one can easily imagine a company like Synagro being unaware of the potential threat. In the absence of an EPA rule, though, I don't know if I see an easy legal solution.