Fort Worth, Texas, ends its contract with Synagro, and the fertilizer -backed fertilizer from Goldman Sachs made of wastewater sludge, on fears that “chemicals forever” in fertilizers pollution of local agricultural lands and groundwater.
Fort Worth this month also filed a lawsuit against many chemical manufacturers, which are also called polyvorokol or PFAs, claiming that it polluted the city’s water supply.
Last year, the New York Times reported a group of livestock breeders in Johnson Province, south of Fort Worth, who filed a lawsuit against Singro, and blamed fertilizers used in agricultural lands adjacent to pollution of their crops and livestock.
The sewage fertilizers came from Synagro, who had a sewage water -taking contract from the wastewater treatment plant in Fort Worth, treated them more, and distributed them to farmers as fertilizers. Johnson Province has since started a criminal investigation into Synagro.
A group of increased research has shown that wastewater sludge, many of which are used as fertilizers, can be contaminated with PFAS, a artificial chemical that is widely used in daily elements such as non -adhesive cooking tools and stain -resistant carpets.
Chemicals, which are Associated with a set of diseases Including an increased risk of cancer, does not collapse in the environment. When contaminated sludge is used as fertilizer in agricultural lands, soil, groundwater, crops and livestock can be contaminated.
In January, the Environmental Protection Agency warned for the first time that PFAs are present in the wastewater fertilizer, also known as biological solids, can pose human health risks. Main, the only country to start testing agricultural lands systematically for PFAS, discovered chemicals in dozens of dairy farms. But there were few tests on farms in other states.
Fort Worth City Council Unanimous On Tuesday to cancel a 10 -year contract signed with Synagro in 2019. The contract will end on April 1, and employees in the city’s water facilities work on new contracts for their vital processes, according to the council’s records.
The city did not cite a reason for the termination of the contract. But in a rear suit submitted by Fort Worth against the PFAS chemical manufacturers, the city was martyred with the presence of PFAs in the city’s drinking water sources and the infrastructure of the exported water.
Synagro said in a statement that the company and the city of Fort Worth “mutually agreed to cut roads and settle all claims after the ongoing differences regarding the requirements of the contract.” He said that the termination was not related to PFAS. The city’s Ministry of Water in the city did not respond immediately to request the suspension.
SYNAGRO, owned by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has opposed the allegations that biological solids have contaminated agricultural lands in Texas. The company this month submitted a request to reject the claims of Johnson County breeders, noting an independent investigation that it was tasked that it had concluded that sludge fertilizers could not be the source of high levels of PFAs in livestock.
Synagro also said that the test showed much lower levels of PFAs in the soil more than the claim by livestock. The company did not publicly investigate.
Livestock breeders have stopped sending their livestock to the market, while continuing to take care of them, and they say they are facing financial ruin.
“Fort Worth ended his contract with Synagro early and that manufacturers of PFAs are paid at the same time as Synagro claims that biological solids did not cause pollution on the land of our customers,” said Married and Whitel, a lawyer for livestock breeders. “He just does not add.”
Dana Amis, the environmental investigator who leads the Johnson Probe Probe in Singro. “We have excluded all other pollution sources. We have also tested vital solids and found pollution,” she said.
At the meeting of the Council, Luan Langley, a resident of Grandevio, Texas, accused the city of standing alongside Synagro, “designed by a poisoned land owners and reassured farmers.” She said that the cancellation of the contract was not enough. “How will this help families destroy their life?” She said.