Rural landowners say the United States’ farms have become dumping grounds for sludge from the wastewater treatment plants of larger cities. They complain of foul odors, contaminated soil, health problems, and stormwater runoff contaminating streams, lakes, and groundwater with possibly dangerous chemicals.
The treated sewage sludge—known as “biosolids”— is the solid matter left from the wastewater treatment process. The sludge is removed from the bottom of the sewage plant tanks then treated to reduce pathogens for use as a soil amendment or fertilizer.
The biosolids industry promotes the treated sludge as an environmentally friendly way to recycle waste that would otherwise end up in a landfill, while saving farmers money on fertilizer. Critics have said that the less-tangible costs of the sludge far outweigh any benefits.
Walt and Saundra Traywick, who own property in Luther, Oklahoma, said they were first introduced to biosolids by a sickening stench outside their home in 2018. They say they have been dealing with the effects of the treated sewage and the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) they carry ever since then.
“It’s that rotting carcass smell, but more metallic,” Walt Traywick told The Epoch Times.
Saundra Traywick said a neighbor was spreading biosolids from wastewater treatment plants in Oklahoma City and Tulsa on his land. She and some of her neighbors were able to get the practice banned in their town of Luther. And the company spreading the materials agreed to include buffer zones around their work areas.

But she said that when she contacted the cities to complain, she was told, “You shouldn’t have moved here if you didn’t like it, because we’ve been doing this for 40 years.”
Using biosolids as fertilizer has been controversial since the early part of this decade, when PFAS were found in the sludge. The state of Maine has banned the practice over public health and safety concerns.
PFAS are called “forever chemicals” because they don’t degrade easily and can remain in soil, air, water, plants, and animals even years after exposure.
The controversy was further heightened when the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that he was tapping the brakes on a regulatory process begun under former President Joe Biden.
The EPA set drinking water limits of 4 parts per trillion for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) in March 2023. The agency also proposed a nonenforceable Maximum Contaminant Level Goal of zero for the chemicals because “there is no dose below which either chemical is considered safe.”
The EPA is also extending the deadline for water utilities to comply with the guidelines from 2029 to 2031.
“[Extending the deadline] will support water systems across the country, including small systems in rural communities, as they work to address these contaminants. EPA will also continue to use its regulatory and enforcement tools to hold polluters accountable,” Zeldin said in the May 14 statement.
It is up to each state to regulate the use of biosolids using the EPA regulations as a guide. Only the state of Maine bans the practice.
Julie Lay, of Guntersville, Alabama, said she got her own rude awakening in June 2019.

That is when she and her family also noticed a bad smell coming from a neighbor’s property. Lay had worked in agribusiness for years. She had never encountered an odor like the one surrounding her home.
As she researched the source of the odor, Lay found that state agencies and agricultural groups that she thought would oppose spreading sewage on farms were supportive of the practice as a cost-effective alternative to commercial fertilizer.
She said the people she spoke with repeated the claim that the biosolids were “nutrient-rich” and beneficial to the soil. They shrugged off any possible danger because no one could say for certain there was a problem, Lay said.
She said she is concerned that by the time a solid link between biosolids and disease is found, the damage to the land and the people who eat the food grown on it will already be done.
“So they used the land as a guinea pig and they used all of us as guinea pigs,” she told The Epoch Times.
The EPA reports that PFAS are found in all 50 states.
The chemicals make their way from manufacturing plants, industrial sites, and military installations to wastewater treatment plants, where they mix with residential sewage and wastewater.
The chemical bond is so strong that they survive the wastewater treatment process and remain in the sludge that is eventually sold as fertilizer.
3M, one of the largest makers of PFAS, agreed to begin phasing out the chemicals in 2000. However, because the chemicals have been around since the 1940s, a majority of Americans have likely already been exposed, the EPA reported.
A 2016 study published by the Department of Health and Human Services found evidence that chemicals in the PFAS family could disrupt the human immune system. Research also shows possible links to cancer.

“The evidence that these chemicals affect multiple aspects of the immune system supports the overall conclusion that both PFOA and PFOS alter immune functions in humans,” the National Institutes of Health website states.
That is what concerns the Traywicks, whose daughter has an autoimmune disorder.
Minutes from a 2020 meeting of the Board of Scientific Counselors to discuss the 2016 study state that scientists also found “clear evidence of carcinogenic activity of PFOA in male rats.”
In response to complaints by the Traywicks and their neighbors, in February, Oklahoma state legislators introduced HB1726 and SB268 to ban the use of biosolids as fertilizer.
They would have also ordered the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry to report on the best alternatives for the state to dispose of biosolids and would have required the Legislature to come up with a land cleanup and reclamation plan.
HB1726 died in the state House of Representatives without a vote. SB268 was voted out of the Senate only to die in the House with its sister bill.
According to information from the EPA press office, the possible effects of PFAS chemicals are still being studied. In January, the EPA released a draft sewage sludge risk assessment for PFOA and PFOS to determine the risk presented by sewage sludge contaminated with PFOA or PFOS chemicals that are used or disposed of through land application, including as fertilizer.

Public Comment Period Open
According to the email, the EPA will use information from the public comment period along with its own research and data to reassess the current guidelines.“EPA is working to explore options to hold polluters accountable for the pollution they discharge to America’s wastewater treatment plants,” Hirsch wrote.
Representatives of biosolids distributors and their customers contacted by The Epoch Times either declined to comment or did not respond to emails and telephone calls seeking comment. However, the companies tout biosolids’ purported benefits on the internet.
Synagro, a Baltimore-based biosolids distributor, posted information from the Water Environmental Association of Texas on its website stating that when properly treated and applied, biosolids are safe and beneficial.
Jasmine Morris, the public information and marketing manager for the Oklahoma City Utilities Department, declined to be interviewed. She provided to The Epoch Times a city white paper on PFAS in biosolids to show that the city is complying with the law.
According to the paper, Oklahoma City has leases to spread biosolids on 11,000 acres across three counties in central Oklahoma: Logan, Oklahoma, and Lincoln, where the Traywicks live.
The paper states that city officials are researching alternatives to land application. However, those would take years to implement and cost millions of dollars.
“The land application of biosolids addresses a triple bottom line of the most environmentally, economically, and socially responsible way of managing the disposal of the treated biosolids,” the white paper reads.

Morris wrote in an email to The Epoch Times that the city is following the recommendations in the EPA’s Draft Sewage Risk Assessment. The white paper points out that the assessment is not an order and does not establish any enforceable rules.
“EPA considers a lifetime cancer risk to be negligible or ideal when the number is 1 in 1,000,000. A risk of 1 in 100,000 is generally considered acceptable by the EPA, and 1 in 10,000 is the upper limit of acceptability for naturally occurring or hard-to-remove contaminants,” Morris stated in her email.
There is no information on the PFAS levels in the treated sewage sludge that the city produces.
The City of Tulsa is sending its treated sewage sludge to pasture land in Tulsa, Osage, Creek, Muskogee, Okmulgee, Rogers and Wagoner counties, according to an information sheet published by the city.
“Biosolids are applied only on land that has been specially permitted by the State of Oklahoma to receive biosolids,” the information sheet reads.
According to the information provided, the cities can dispose of the treated sludge by incineration, placing it in a landfill, or treating it and selling it as fertilizer. Tulsa’s view is that spreading the sludge on farmland is a win-win.
“[Biosolids] are biodegradable and release nutrients into the soil to improve soil quality and promote plant growth,” the information sheet states.
Oklahoma state Rep. Jim Shaw, a Republican and sponsor of HB1726, said cities are simply passing their costs and the risk of contamination onto rural residents.
“I think it’s irresponsible for government or industry to promote something so toxic,” Shaw told The Epoch Times. “We’re talking about small farms and ranches. This impacts everybody.”