A group of Texas ranchers have claimed their animals are dying from toxic fertilizer spread from a nearby farm, comparing it to the Chernobyl disaster.
Johnson County farmers are suing Synagro, a fertilizer company that uses treated human waste in its products, over contamination of their land.
According to Synagro, the fertilizer meets government standards, but farmers say their livestock, fish and horses are dying and getting sick from the toxic product.
Rancher Tony Coleman is one of the farmers behind the lawsuit, which claims fertilizer runoff has made farmland unusable. “We are nervous and we are afraid,” he said. WFAA.
Coleman said his neighbor used the Synagro product to fertilize his land and what came next was a disaster.
Johnson County farmers (pictured) are suing Synagro, a fertilizer company that uses treated human waste in its products, over contamination of their land.
He lost 10 cows, two houses and five entire fish ponds after his land was reportedly contaminated.
“They’ve taken away your entire livelihood,” Coleman said.
Coleman contacted Johnson County Police Detective Dana Ames, who traveled to the ranch to investigate the problem.
Ames said he later learned that what he had found in the area were piles of fertilizer made from biosolids, which come from human waste and are full of PFAS, which scientists know as “forever chemicals.”
“They are man-made chemicals,” Ames said. It’s in the sewage sludge. It’s in the biosolids.
Ames teamed up with scientists and experts to try to figure out how toxic man-made chemicals ended up on a ranch in rural Texas.
They eventually discovered that the chemicals came from Synagro, which uses “sewage sludge” to make its products.
Ames presented his findings to the Johnson County Commissioners Court. “The contamination that has occurred on our victims’ properties is widespread,” she told commissioners in his presentation.
Together with the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, also known as PEER, Ames examined where the wastewater came from and traced it to a Fort Worth wastewater facility.
One of the farmers behind the lawsuit claims he lost 10 cows, two houses and five entire fish ponds. In the photo: a dead calf.
Waste becomes poisoned because all humans consume PFAS, a complex group of synthetic chemicals that can be found in everything from frying pans to makeup, candy wrappers and even pizza boxes.
All PFAS chemicals end up in human waste and are sent to the wastewater facility, where the sewage sludge is used to make the cheap fertilizer sold nationwide.
Since the allegedly toxic fertilizer was used in Johnson County, ranchers are considering having to abandon farms and euthanize animals.
When tests were conducted on farms, extremely high levels of PFAS were found in animals and well water. Everything was contaminated.
“My first thought was, you know, this is Chernobyl, a nuclear meltdown,” Commissioner Kenny Howell told the court after the findings were presented.
The Chernobyl disaster began on April 26, 1986 at the nuclear power plant in then-Soviet-ruled Ukraine.
Reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, bringing down the building and releasing large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere.
Within a few weeks, 30 people had died and more than 100 suffered radiation injuries.
Millions of acres of forests and farmlands were contaminated, livestock were born deformed, and humans suffered long-term negative health impacts.
Texas farmers worry their community could suffer the same thing.
‘These things should be banned throughout the United States, what are our children going to do?’ You’re ruining their land, you’re ruining their water source. What are they going to do? You have to stop,” Coleman said.
DailyMail.com has contacted Synagro for comment.