Residue from human waste has long wound up as farm fertilizer. Some neighbors hate it

WELLSTON, Okla. — When Leslie Stewart moved to her home in a rural expanse of Lincoln County outside of Oklahoma City more than 20 years ago, she thought she’d found a slice of heaven. In a town of fewer than 700 people, her son could attend a good school and her acreage offered plenty of room to raise goats and let her dogs run.

But several years ago, her neighbor began applying sewage sludge, which consists largely of human waste left over from municipal wastewater treatment facilities, as a fertilizer on his farmland, causing a rancid smell so powerful it nearly took her breath away.

“The smell is so overwhelming that it goes through my oxygen machine and straight up my nose, which makes it very difficult for me to even walk out my door,” said Stewart, 53, who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

In the summer, the sewage sludge, referred to in the industry as biosolids, attracted so many flies there was no way to keep them out of the house.

“They come through the vents. They come through the vent on the stove,” she said. “It’s just absolutely miserable.”

Stories like Stewart’s are common in rural areas across the U.S. And while the application of sewage sludge as a fertilizer on farmland has been happening for decades, opposition is mounting amid growing environmental concerns about potential pollution of groundwater from toxic chemicals in wastewater. One county in Texas declared a state of disaster this year amid reported deaths of fish and cattle, as well as the contamination of groundwater, in areas where sewage sludge was being used as fertilizer.

Now the battle over how to place guardrails on the practice is playing out in legislatures even in red states like Oklahoma. Maine has temporarily banned the land application of sewage sludge and Oklahoma is considering a similar ban. Many other states are more closely regulating the practice.

One big concern is the human health risk from toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as forever chemicals because they don’t degrade in the environment. They’re linked to health issues such as low birth weight and liver disease along with certain types of cancers. These chemicals, which are found in some nonstick cookware, grease-resistant food packaging, carpet fibers and certain cosmetics, can end up in wastewater and ultimately in the sludge that is used to fertilize farmland.

Farmers typically get the sludge for free, saving them hundreds of dollars per acre over synthetic fertilizer, said Brian Arnall, a professor of plant and soil sciences at Oklahoma State University.

A study released this year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggests human health risks exceeding EPA’s thresholds, sometimes by “several orders of magnitude,” for scenarios where farmers applied the sludge to their land. Another study published last year by the American Chemical Society found that PFAs can leak from biosolids into groundwater after a single application.

In Oklahoma, the issue has become so contentious at the state Capitol that a longtime state House member was upset in a GOP primary last year after he acknowledged using sewage sludge during a town hall-style forum and defended the practice as a private property rights issue.

Rep. Jim Shaw, the winner of that race, called the issue a major reason for his victory. He’s now seeking to ban the practice statewide.

“I think we’re rapidly approaching an emergency issue in our state and across the nation,” Shaw said. “It is absolutely at the top of my list as needing traction on it immediately.”

The issue is particularly acute in Shaw’s part of the state, where nearby Oklahoma City has an estimated 5,000 acres that have been permitted for land application of its sewage sludge.

Among those who want to keep using sewage sludge as fertilizer are cities and towns across the state who have found it cheaper than other ways of getting rid of the material, like burning it or putting it in landfills. Oklahoma City wastewater officials declined to be interviewed but provided a fact sheet on their use of biosolids that estimated developing an alternative to land application would cost more than $100 million in capital improvements and take as long as 10 years to implement.

The state’s Department of Environmental Quality has rules that require any biosolids used as fertilizer to meet certain criteria on levels of heavy metals and pathogen reduction requirements, but the agency acknowledged they aren’t currently testing for PFAS.

Several Oklahoma farmers who apply sewage sludge to their property, including Stewart’s neighbor, declined to speak to The Associated Press.

Synagro, the nation’s largest processors of biosolids, said in a statement that all the sewage sludge used by the company and its customers meets federal and state requirements.

“Biosolids provide multiple benefits to overall soil quality and health, including improved moisture absorption ability, recycling of micro and macro nutrients, carbon sequestering, reduced nutrient leaching, and lower use of industrially produced chemical fertilizers,” the company said. “Another key benefit is keeping biosolids out of landfills where they can cause methane emissions that contribute to climate change.”

None of that satisfies Saundra Traywick, who raises donkeys with her family in the town of Luther outside of Oklahoma City and has become a fierce opponent of sewage sludge as fertilizer.

After getting Luther to ban the practice several years ago, she has taken her crusade to the state Capitol and found herself fighting against cities that want to maintain the status quo.

“They can not have to pay for a landfill or to upgrade their wastewater treatment plants, and instead spend money on art, parks and beautification projects and arenas, and continue to dump this on people outside their districts,” she said. “The injustice of that just blows my mind.”