The city of Fort Worth, Texas, is finishing its contract with Synagro, the Goldman Sachs fertilizer provider made of wastewater sludge, for the concerns that “chemical products forever” in the fertilizer pollute local cultivation and groundwater lands.
This month, Fort Worth also demanded several chemical manufacturers, also called substances or PFA by and polyfluoroalquilo, claiming that they contaminated the city’s water supplies.
The New York Times reported last year in a group of farmers in Johnson County, just south of Fort Worth, which demanded Synagro, blaming the fertilizer used in neighboring farmland to contaminate their crops and cattle.
The wastewater sliding fertilizer came from Synagro, which had a contract to take the wastewater from the Fort Worth wastewater treatment plant, treat it more and distribute it to farmers as fertilizers. Since then, Johnson County has launched a criminal investigation into Synagro.
A growing body of research has shown that the wastewater mud, much of which is used as a fertilizer, can be contaminated with PFA, a synthetic chemist that is widely used in everyday items such as anti -adherent kitchen utensils and stains -resistant carpets.
Chemicals, which are linked to a variety of diseases, including a higher risk of cancer, do not break into the environment. When contaminated mud is used as a fertilizer in culture lands, it can contaminate soil, groundwater, crops and cattle.
In January, the Environmental Protection Agency first warned that the PFA present in the wastewater fertilizer, also known as biosolids, can raise risks to human health. Maine, the only state that has begun to systematically test cultivation land for PFA, has detected chemicals in dozens of dairy farms. But there have been few tests in farms in other states.
Fort Worth City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to cancel a 10 -year contract signed with Synagro in 2019. The contract will end on April 1, and the city’s water service personnel are working on new contracts for its biosolic operations, according to the records of the Council.
The city did not quote a reason to finish the contract. But in a recent demand filed by Fort Worth against the manufacturers of PFAS Chemicals, the city cited the presence of PFA in the city’s drinking water sources and the wastewater infrastructure.
Synagro said in a statement that the company and the city of Fort Worth “agreed to mutually separate and resolve all claims after the ongoing disagreements with respect to the requirements of the contract.” He said the termination was not related to the PFA. The city’s water department did not respond immediately to a request for comments.
Synagro, owned by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has played statements that their biosolids have contaminated Texas cultivation lands. This month, the company presented a motion to dismiss the claims of the winners of Johnson County, citing an independent investigation that had commissioned that it concluded that the mud fertilizer could not be the source of high levels of PFA found in the cattle of the farmers.
Synagro also said that the tests had shown much lower levels of PFA on the ground than those claimed by the farmers. The company has not publicly published the investigation.
The farmers have stopped sending their cattle to the market, while they continue to take care of them and say they face a financial ruin.
“Fort Worth ended his contract with Synagro early and is demanding PFA manufacturers while Synagro states that his biosolids did not cause pollution in the land of our clients,” said Marred Whittle, a cattle ranchers. “It simply does not add.”
Dana Ames, an environmental researcher who led the Synagro investigation of Johnson County, said that an “thorough investigation” had found high levels of PFA in the property of the rancher. “We have ruled out all other sources of pollution. We also tried biosolids and we found pollution,” he said.
At the council meeting, Luanne Langley, resident of Grandview, Texas, accused the city while Synagro “threw biosolids biosolids and off -art farmers.” She said canceling the contract was not enough. “How are you going to help families whose lives have been destroyed?” She said.
