For decades, cities and states have been using treated human sewage, called "biosolids", to create composts and fertilizers. They've also applied millions of gallons of biosolids to farmland across the United States. But now, the EPA is taking a closer look at the myriad contaminants that end up in biosolids. Are they safe to put in our gardens and on our crops? Tests reveal the shocking truth.

Aired 12/14/2023

By: Teagan King and Athena Fosler-Brazil - June 6, 2024 2:25 pm

Anti-sludge signs dotted the roadsides of rural Newton and McDonald Counties on Feb. 24 (Athena Fosler-Brazil/Missourian).

GRANBY — About a year after Blair Powell built his dream home in the southwest Missouri Ozarks, a noxious smell wafting from the farm next door ruined his son’s wedding reception in their backyard.

“It just was ungodly,” Powell said. “Just the worst, horrible, horrible smell. Eyes were burning, some were just nauseous, and some were sick, they had to leave.”

The source of the odor was a large waste lagoon on farmer Jerry Evans’ property, about a mile behind Powell’s house. The open-air pit contains “sludge,” as it is colloquially known, composed of animal parts and wastewater from meat and poultry processing facilities. According to neighbors, the material looks like a gray slurry, thick as a milkshake, and smells like a dead animal — which is what it is. Arkansas-based Denali Water Solutions made a deal with Evans and other farmers to house the lagoons and provided the material to area farmers as free “fertilizer.”
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Martin Phillips is one of three scientists who faced retaliation by supervisors at the Environmental Protection Agency, an inspector general’s investigation found. Credit:Jenn Ackerman, special to ProPublica

Three reports issued by the agency’s inspector general detailed personal attacks suffered by the scientists — including being called “stupid,” “piranhas” and “pot-stirrers” — and called on the EPA to take “appropriate corrective action” in response.

More than three years ago, a small group of government scientists came forward with disturbing allegations.

During President Donald Trump’s administration, they said, their managers at the Environmental Protection Agency began pressuring them to make new chemicals they were vetting seem safer than they really were. They were encouraged to delete evidence of chemicals’ harms, including cancer, miscarriage and neurological problems, from their reports — and in some cases, they said, their managers deleted the information themselves.

After the scientists pushed back, they received negative performance reviews and three of them were removed from their positions in the EPA’s division of new chemicals and reassigned to jobs elsewhere in the agency.

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[EDITOR NOTE: sewage sludge applied on farmlands is the predominant source of microplastics in the environment and crop plants are taking up microplastics.]

by Douglas Main

A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain, alarming findings that highlight a need for more urgent actions to rein in plastic pollution, researchers say.

Different studies have detected tiny shards and specks of plastics in human lungs, placentas, reproductive organs, livers, kidneys, knee and elbow joints, blood vessels, and bone marrow.

Given the research findings, “it is now imperative to declare a global emergency” to deal with plastic pollution, said Sedat Gündoğdu, who studies microplastics at Cukurova University in Turkey.

Humans are exposed to microplastics – defined as fragments smaller than five millimeters in length – and the chemicals used to make plastics from widespread plastic pollution in air, water, and even food.

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The Times dug into the widespread use of sewage sludge as fertilizer, which is sometimes heavily contaminated by “forever chemicals.”

A field in Texas where sludge-based fertilizer had been applied. Neighbors claim it led to animal deaths.Credit...Jordan Vonderhaar for The New York Times

By Hiroko Tabuchi

Aug. 31, 2024

For decades, the government has encouraged farmers across the United States to spread sewage sludge on their cropland and pastures. But now there’s a growing awareness that sludge fertilizer can contain heavy concentrations of “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, birth defects and other health risks.

This sludge is a byproduct of the nation’s wastewater-treatment plants. It’s the solid stuff that remains after city sewage is treated. But because it’s essentially concentrated waste, those toxic chemicals, known as PFAS, can become concentrated in it, too.

Here are the key findings from The New York Times’s examination of sludge fertilizer use and the consequences for farmers and the food supply.

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A new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine about the relationship between soil and human health has been issued. The report repeatedly cites the toxicity of sewage sludge (aka 'biosolids') upon soil and human health.

A video presentation and the published report can be found at The National Academies Press