06/18/2026
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The government told farmers to spread sewage sludge on their fields. They said it was safe. They set no limits. And now those farmers are watching their herds die and their land get declared unfit to farm — with no federal accountability in sight.
For decades, the EPA approved the land application of what the industry calls "biosolids" — treated sewage sludge — as a fertilizer on American farmland. According to the Environmental Working Group, that practice may have contaminated nearly 70 million acres of U.S. farmland with PFAS, the class of synthetic chemicals known as "forever chemicals" because they do not break down in soil, water, or the human body.
But here's what makes this different from an industrial accident: the farmers didn't make a mistake. They used a government-approved product, followed government guidance, and applied it to their fields exactly as instructed. There were no warning labels. There were no federal PFAS limits. There were no safety tests required.
So when the contamination surfaced, there was no one to sue. No one to compensate them. No one who had technically broken a rule.
The National Desk reported on Tony and Karen Coleman, a farming couple in Johnson County, Texas, who say their property is now "condemned useless." Their cattle are gone. They can no longer raise livestock on land that was a working ranch when Patsy Schultz, Karen's mother, was alive. In Maine, according to state officials, more than 80 farms have been affected by PFAS contamination linked to biosolids. Dairy farmer Fred Stone euthanized his entire herd after milk from his cows tested too high in PFAS to sell.
New Mexico. Michigan. Maine. Texas. The geography is wide. The pattern is the same.
In October 2025, a federal court dismissed a lawsuit that attempted to force the EPA to regulate PFAS in sewage sludge. According to reporting by The New Lede and Investigate Midwest, the judge ruled that the EPA's legal obligation is only to conduct a routine review of biosolids regulations — not to identify new contaminants or set new safety limits. The agency, the court effectively said, had no obligation to act.
As of today, there are still no national requirements to test sewage sludge for PFAS before it goes on farmland. More than half of all sewage sludge produced in the United States is applied to agricultural land. And the farmers who followed the rules are still waiting for someone in Washington to acknowledge what happened to them.
