By Lena Beck for Modern Farmer.
Broadcast version by Roz Brown for New Mexico News Connection reporting for the Modern Farmer-Public News Service Collaboration.

The thing that Kendra Kimbirauskas hadn't expected were the trucks.

As a small farmer who formerly worked with communities to resist large corporate farms, she knew a lot about how industrial chicken operations could affect a community. She knew about the putrid smell of animal waste, she knew it wasn't safe to drink the local water. But, in April of 2023, as she visited a midwestern farmer whose home was surrounded by dozens of industrial chicken barns producing millions of chickens, it was the sight of the trucks hurtling down the narrow roads, one after the other, that was particularly jarring.

"If you can picture a dusty dirt road with semis barreling down, the amount of dust and dirt and God knows whatever else that comes off these trucks would literally blow into the front yard," says Kimbirauskas. "Thinking about putting your clothes on the line, or having your windows open, that's no longer an option because of these trucks."

Carrying feed, new birds, and finished flocks, these trucks served as a near-constant reminder of the other things these operations bring with them-smells that make it hard to stand outside, air pollution you can feel burning your throat, not being able to trust the water coming out of your tap-the list goes on.

Just three years earlier, Kimbirauskas had gotten wind that Foster Farms was planning to move into her own home of Linn County, Oregon and decided to fight back. After a bit of digging, what she found was staggering: Foster Farms was planning three sites in the county to build concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which would collectively raise 13 million chickens per year. This visit provided Kimbirauskas with a glimpse into what she was fighting against in her own home community.

"For me that was such an affirmation that [our] community is 100 percent going to be the target of chicken expansion," says Kimbirauskas. "It really made me dig in and stand in my own power and agency of knowing that this is not something that would be good and beneficial for Linn County."

CAFOs are defined by the EPA as intensive feeding operations where many animals are confined and fed for at least 45 days per year-though this is just a minimum-and where the waste from those animals poses a pollution threat to surface water.

There are small, medium and large CAFOs, with the largest of these-housing thousands to tens of thousands of animals-embodying the truest definition of a "factory farm." Many of the issues can be boiled down to the sheer concentration of manure they produce.

As of 2022, there were more than 21,000 large CAFOs in the US. One estimate, informed by USDA data, suggests that 99 percent of livestock grown in the US is raised in a CAFO. Some states have particularly dense concentrations, such as Iowa, North Carolina, and Nebraska. This industry presents itself as a way to produce a lot of food while keeping costs down. But any cost saved by the consumer is a cost borne by the CAFOs' neighboring communities, the environment, local economies, and even the contracted farmers themselves.

Large CAFOs cause myriad problems that are currently being experienced by communities across the country. These issues include environmental pollution, drinking water poisoning, air pollution, and plummeting property values. In drought-ridden states such as New Mexico, CAFOs add insult to injury by contaminating the water and using more water than the dwindling aquifers can handle. In Winona County, Minnesota, more than 1,300 people can't drink their water because of nitrate pollution.

There have been many instances of serious illnesses believed to be linked to living close to CAFOs, such as cancer and miscarriages, and respiratory issues such as asthma and sleep apnea are prolific in CAFO-adjacent communities. In North Carolina, living near a large CAFO has been associated with increased blood pressure. In Iowa, a study found that children raised on swine farms had increased odds of developing asthma.

Large CAFOs are often built in communities of color. This frequency with which polluting industries are built in these communities is evidence of ongoing environmental injustice.

While the industry often associates itself with the picturesque image of American farming, the fact is that industrial agriculture has created the immense consolidation of US farms, driving farmers all over the country out of business. CAFOs are often built in clusters near each other-when a CAFO is built, more will likely follow.

The factory farm industry is expanding all the time, but communities across the country have become advocates to stop this expansion-both at individual sites, and on a systemic level-in the hopes that, one day, no one has to pay the price of factory farming.

Foster Farms is coming to town

Linn County is tucked into the western part of Oregon and home to many family-run farms. But, in 2020, Foster Farms arrived in the county, planning to build CAFOs holding tens of thousands of birds at a time. Foster Farms is a poultry company that sells chicken and chicken products in chain grocery stores across the country.

In Linn County, there was no public announcement of Foster Farms' arrival.

"One of the stories that we hear time and again is people didn't realize or don't realize what's going on until it's too late," says Kimbirauskas. "That is a tactic of the industry because nobody wants to live next to one of these things. So, they're going to be trying to get in as quietly as possible."

It started in 2020, when a woman working at a local feed store noticed a customer come in with Foster Farms company branding on his coat. He was a land scout, and he was in the area to try and determine suitable land for chicken operations.

She asked him some specific questions about the locations they were considering. One, she learned, was right next to her house. The land scout told her they planned to put up a buffer between the site and one of the bigger houses in the area, so they wouldn't get complaints. But, she knew, there was also a smaller house on that road-her house. Would that house get a buffer?

Well, he told her, they don't have enough money to do anything about it.

Foster Farms' behavior aligns with larger trends-data shows that CAFOs are disproportionately built in low-income areas.

After this upsetting conversation, the woman reached out to Kimbirauskas. Kimbirauskas is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to fighting CAFOs, because she's seen similar situations play out all over the country. Growing up in Michigan, the rapid consolidation of dairy farms due to industrialized agriculture led her family to the very difficult decision to sell their dairy. Today, Kimbirauskas is the Senior Director of Agriculture and Food Systems at the State Innovation Exchange (SiX). Before that, as chief executive officer of the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP), she had worked with communities across the country who were dealing with health and environmental issues as a result of living next to CAFOs.

Kimbirauskas and other concerned members of the community found that there was no information available at the state level about what was going on, so the first thing Kimbirauskas began doing was submitting public records requests.

"Through those public records requests, we found that there was not two but three sites that were being proposed, which would have totaled roughly 13 million chickens within a 10-mile radius, and that was per year," says Kimbirauskas.

Something had to be done.

Site fights

The battle against factory farms happens at multiple scales. Some of the big-picture advocacy happens at the state and federal level, where advocates are trying to make systemic changes. Other battles happen directly over individual proposed or existing CAFOs-these are known as "site fights."

Site fights aren't easy to win. But it is possible. Barb Kalbach, president of the board of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI), has experienced it firsthand. In 2002, Kalbach lived on a small farm in Adair County, Iowa-a rural community that today has a population of less than 8,000. She heard through the grapevine that just 1,970 feet up the road from her property, a massive hog CAFO was being proposed. She called a realtor she knew who lived nearby who confirmed it. The operation would consist of 10 buildings holding 7,200 sows, producing 10 million gallons of liquid manure every year. Kalbach's farm had always been surrounded by other farms. But no regular farm produces that much manure.

Kalbach called the Iowa CCI, which had been fighting social justice issues affecting Iowans since the 1970s.

"I called the office. That was on a Friday, and they sent out on Sunday an organizer. And in that two-day period, I called all the neighbors, anybody I can think of in our community that probably wouldn't like it very well, this confinement, and we all met over at our little local country church."

When organizing against a CAFO, simply not wanting one near you isn't a good enough reason to keep one out. CCI didn't do the work for them, says Kalbach, but advised them on things they could do, such as looking for evidence in their plans that the facility wouldn't be able to meet the environmental regulation requirements. Proof of this kind is easier said than found.

Kalbach and her neighbors went to commissioner meetings, did research, wrote letters to the editor of the local newspaper, created petitions and sought signatures. The actual turning point came to Kalbach as a phone call in the early hours of the day.

"At four o'clock in the morning, one of the guys called me and he said, 'I've got a great idea,'" says Kalbach. To get permitted, this operation would have to create a manure management plan for the 10 million gallons of liquid manure per year. "The guy that called me said, 'let's get all the farmers within a 10-mile radius to sign a document that states they will not accept the manure.'"

The idea was to show the Environmental Protection Commission (EPC) that all of the manure would have to be transported at least 10 miles before anything could be done with it. The CAFO would not be able to claim that nearby farms were going to use the manure as fertilizer.

The CAFO was permitted anyway. The community appealed this decision, and during this period, they brought forth everything they had-including the list of neighboring farmers who agreed to reject the CAFO's manure. And they succeeded. In the end, the vote went in favor of the community.

"[The EPC) voted finally and we won five to four," says Kalbach. "He was smacked down and we did not have a factory farm built by us."

Site fight victories show what's possible. But when denied a site, industry begins looking elsewhere. The danger is that the next community may not be as successful in resisting. And that's why many advocates are also looking for systemic change.

Iowa is densely populated with CAFOs. In the last 25 years, the number of waterways in Iowa that are polluted has increased significantly. Iowa Public Radio reports that Iowa has the second-highest rate of new cancers in the country, and it leads the nation in the highest rate of new cancers. Kalbach says she believes these are connected.

Iowa is known for its sheer density of swine CAFOs, producing one out of every three hogs raised for consumption. As a result, Iowa has to deal with more hog waste than any other state in the country. The impact is felt in both rural and urban communities.

"I think it's a little easier in urban centers, like Iowa City and Des Moines, to feel like things are a little more normal, and that the scale of the problem isn't quite what it is," says Mankel. "But driving through rural Iowa, and visiting small towns, it's really destroyed so much of our state."

There has been a campaign for a moratorium on new or expanding CAFOs in the Iowa state legislature since 2017. It has not been passed.

Despite the lack of success in Iowa, moratoria movements are one way that some other states and counties have prevented new CAFOs being built or expanded. At a federal level, Senator Cory Booker's Farm System Reform Act could make moratoria a reality across the country. While site fights are important, they are not always successful. In states such as Iowa, which is densely saturated with CAFOs, only systemic change will move the needle.

"I think those folks, who are the [majority] of Iowans who are not farmers, are starting to understand why they should care about this," says Jennifer Breon of Food & Water Watch Iowa.

Consolidation and systemic advocacy

Being near a megadairy CAFO is a visceral experience. In Clovis, New Mexico, organizer for Food & Water Watch Alexa Moore said the smell was like that of a normal farm cranked up to 10 times the potency. That smell, caused by the high concentration of manure, is more than just a bad scent; these fumes carry ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, which cause respiratory issues. Just walking through the parking lot of a Walmart, Moore's throat was burning.

Moore's stop in Roswell was part of a roadshow to three towns with a heavy factory farming presence: Clovis, Roswell, and Las Cruces. At each of these communities, Moore and fellow organizer Emily Tucker hosted a showing of the film "Right to Harm," a documentary that demonstrates some of the ways communities are resisting factory farming across the country. This roadshow aimed to build awareness of the issue, and foster conversation around some of the systemic changes that need to be made, and talk about the situations in the surrounding area. Some of these locations are also near airforce and military bases, which have caused pollution as well. They found some residents knew there was water pollution, but they didn't realize how much of it was due to the large CAFOs.

"A lot of people just assumed that all of the water contamination was from those military bases," says Moore.

Along the way, they were cautioned by locals not to drink the water. At a taproom in Roswell, Tucker asked the server for a glass of water.

"I'll just get you a bottle," the server replied.

In a state that experienced a decades-long drought, New Mexico doesn't have much water to spare. But here, factory farms use an estimated 32 million gallons of water every day. This puts a particular squeeze on smaller farmers, who simply can't farm without water.

"What we are seeing is a lot of our smaller farmers aren't able to continue to dig wells. So, we're seeing aquifer levels drop, their wells are going dry, and the small farmers aren't able to compete with these big corporations who can keep drilling and keep drilling," says Moore.

Moore's own family feels the strain directly. "My cousin is a farmer. He lives down in Alamogordo. He's a small family farmer, been in the family for five generations," says Moore. "And just this year, they lost their well water and so he can no longer farm, which is a huge part of his income."

Large-scale dairies also outcompete more sustainable operations on price, driving them out of business. In the past 20 years, New Mexico has lost half of its small-scale dairies. In this context, a small dairy is less than 500 cows. Large dairies can have tens of thousands of cows.

Consolidation isn't just a symptom of the factory farm problem, says Sean Carroll, policy and organizing director for the Land Stewardship Project in Minnesota. It's the root of it.

"Our system is so consolidated," says Carroll. "But that's a system that we created through choices made by policymakers. We can make different policy decisions that actually create a system that is better for farmers [and] better for rural communities."

A member organization of the HEAL Food Alliance, the Land Stewardship Project has had about 40 successful oppositions against CAFOs in just as many years. But it also engages in policy work at the state and federal level. Real change can be affected through a balance of both, says Carroll.

"At the local level, people's voices have a lot of power," says Carroll. "At the same time, so much of the drivers of this system are decisions that are made at the state or the federal level."

One of the greatest ways to battle industrial animal agriculture is by bolstering sustainable farm systems through policy. For example, the USDA is currently re-evaluating its Packers and Stockyards Act. Anyone can contact their legislators to voice their support of policies that can create long-lasting change.

"We can and need to change the language of the law so that farmers have actual legal avenues to challenge price discrimination from consolidation," says Carroll.

Additionally, the Farm Bill is a giant piece of legislation passed once approximately every five years, and it affects everything to do with our food system. One of the Land Stewardship Project's priorities for the Farm Bill is to stop using conservation funding for factory farms. Millions of dollars of this funding goes to large-scale CAFOs instead of helping smaller farmers expand their sustainable practices.

The use of conservation funding for large-scale CAFOs is something that community advocates around the country know all too well. Often, this takes the shape of anaerobic digesters at large CAFOs, which convert animal manure into methane gas, to be used as energy.

Rania Masri, PhD, co-director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, says that biogas gets touted as a clean energy solution when really it's the complete opposite.

"That concept, in and of itself, sounds great, but when we look into the details, we see that in North Carolina, biogas promotion is specifically designed to financially incentivize and increase the profit of industrial agriculture," says Masri. "So, in that way, what it ends up doing is increasing methane production rather than decreasing it, increasing pollution in communities rather than decreasing it, and threatening communities with the possibility of methane explosion."

Organizing against false solutions

In places where clusters of large-scale CAFOs are already established, organizers try to prevent existing CAFOs from expanding. In recent years, this has included advocacy against building anaerobic biogas digesters at large CAFOs.

Federal and state governments have put forth biogas technology as a way to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. But advocates such as SRAP and Friends of the Earth say that biogas production does not erase the environmental impact of CAFOs. Instead, this industry creates a market for the manure systems that are most detrimental to human health.

By incentivizing manure production, biogas encourages mega-dairies to grow in size.

In areas such as California's Central Valley, parts of the midwest, and eastern North Carolina, advocates are speaking up against digesters. In this work, communities have to go up against not just industrial animal production giants, but also Big Oil-which has a direct interest in seeing the biogas market grow.

"It's important that when you're organizing about this stuff, you're super clear with the community members about what you're going up against," says Leslie Martinez, community engagement specialist for Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (LCJA). "You're going up against Goliath."

LCJA addresses systemic injustice, particularly in California's rural and low-income regions, and biogas is one of the issues on which Martinez works closely with community members. Martinez is based in California's San Joaquin Valley, where there is a high concentration of mega-dairies. In the small towns throughout the valley, people may live next to as many as two dozen of these operations. No one knows the negative impacts of living next to mega-dairies better than people who actually do. They experience the air and water pollution firsthand.

"Communities who live next to dairies have a lot of expertise," says Martinez.

And yet, this technology is part of both state and federal plans to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. New Mexico recently passed a bill called the Clean Transportation Fuel Standard, intended to support the development of clean energy in the state.

California has its own Low Carbon Fuel Standard, something that has turned out to bolster mega-dairy CAFOs by supporting the development of anaerobic digesters. To resist the impacts of digesters, it's important to know how the rules surrounding the industry are made.

"If you're an organizer, I think step one is to figure out how decisions get made," says Martinez. "But [it's] also important to talk to someone who has been through this, who has been through a regulation so you can also understand the weird politics about it."

Martinez and LCJA have had individual victories against CAFO expansions, but when it comes to biogas advocacy, it has been difficult to get the California Air Resources Board to take the community's concerns about public health into consideration.

"It's business as usual," says Martinez. "But what about the fact that this business as usual is bad?"

As an organizer, Martinez has experienced how things like this frequently get presented through a narrow lens, such as focusing on creating methane gas without acknowledging community impact. She recommends organizers and communities push for a more holistic approach. A good question to keep coming back to when speaking to industry or government officials is, 'how would that impact community?'

"The other thing I encourage organizers to do is to stop thinking about things in silos. The bureaucracy creates things in silos to make it difficult for communities to make change, and at the end of the day, we know that there needs to be comprehensive reform around how we are doing dairies in California."

Becoming an advocate

When Mary Dougherty first heard of the plan to build a 26,000-hog CAFO in her home of Bayfield County, Wisconsin, she was concerned. Other parts of Minnesota had been through this. In Kewaunee County, there were more cows than people and nitrate pollution made the water unsafe to drink in many private wells. It's still that way, today.

Dougherty knew it was bad news. What she didn't know was what to do about it.

She had never thought of herself as an organizer or an environmentalist. She ran a restaurant. She published a cookbook. She was a mom to five kids. Of all the hats she wore, organizer wasn't one of them.

"I had no idea about any of this stuff," says Dougherty. "Literally zero-less than zero probably. I didn't know what the hell I was doing."

But she had to learn. There are only about 16,000 people in Bayfield County, so the idea of there being more hogs than humans was frightening. The town of Bayfield is perched on the edge of Lake Superior. Even though she didn't think of herself as an environmentalist, many people in Bayfield shared the same love for the lake and the surrounding landscape. The acute threat posed by CAFO pollution had to be addressed.

Now senior regional representative for the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, Dougherty first got involved with the organization because it was who she reached out to for assistance.

"I got involved with SRAP because I called for help," says Dougherty. "I have such a really deep appreciation for the space [people are] in when they call because I was in that space in 2015."

The impact of this is two-fold-it leads to people supporting large-scale corporate farms because they think they're supporting the family farmer. But it also means that these operations aren't subject to the same regulations and monitoring as manufacturing industries. As agricultural operations, large CAFOs get away with more self-reporting and self-regulation.

Dougherty receives calls about impending CAFOs, and in places where CAFOs are already established, anaerobic digesters for biogas.

For the average person to begin organizing against a CAFO or digester is like going into a whole new world where they don't speak the language, says Dougherty. This new world is filled with things such as public records requests, zoning codes, and manure management plans.

Having been through the situation herself and supported others in similar situations, Dougherty says the most important thing to do first is listen to the community. She calls this a "tell me more" approach.

"What the Community Support program does is ... hold space for folks, as they orient themselves to this huge fight they're gonna find themselves in," says Dougherty.

When things were beginning in Bayfield, these early conversations were like the community's compass rose. They asked themselves questions such as "who are we" and "what do we value?" And only then, says Dougherty, could they move on to "what are we going to do about it?"

Bayfield residents came together on the common ground of wanting to protect Lake Superior and the surrounding landscape. And what they did about it was they started a petition to enact a moratorium on siting CAFOs in Bayfield County.

"This is ground that we all can stand on and agree, yes, this works for us. And once we've defined that ground, then we go on to the work of how we're going to protect this place."

The county board of supervisors passed the moratorium, stopping the clock temporarily. During that time, the board set up a study committee, which ended up recommending two ordinances that would further regulate any future CAFOs in Bayfield County. The 26,000-hog CAFO was not built in Bayfield County-but it did find another home in Burnett County.

Back in Linn County, Oregon, Farmers Against Foster Farms was working towards both-a bill to protect not only its county but give other Oregon counties the ability to defend themselves as well.

In Oregon, the story is not over

Finding out about the planned chicken operation galvanized Linn County residents-many of them farmers themselves-to organize into a group called Farmers Against Foster Farms. They made a website and an email listserv, created yard signs and a Facebook page. The three planned sites were a concern, but they also wanted a way to address the issue more generally, before future sites were even chosen.

Starla Tillinghast, a Linn County farmer and member of Farmers Against Foster Farms, knew that many of the issues they were concerned about, such as environmental pollution and health effects, could be partially addressed with "setbacks." A setback is a legally required distance between a CAFO and a property line. Oregon's was on the lower end-a couple of dozen feet. Tillinghast began looking at other agricultural states to see what their required setbacks were. Other states had greater setbacks, and Tillinghast thought that this information could help Oregon follow suit.

"I went and looked up setbacks all across the nation, and I wrote that out in a table," says Tillinghast. "I brought it to the planner, and I brought it to the county commissioners."

When they went to the Linn County commissioners with their concerns, they were faced with this issue: Oregon counties did not have "local control" or the ability to make decisions about these matters at the county level. When decisions about CAFOs are made at the state level, it makes it easier for industry to get a toehold in desirable areas.

They campaigned in coalition with other groups and, in August 2023, Oregon passed Senate Bill 85. One of the things it did was give counties local control. Another key part of its passing made it illegal for corporate farms to access groundwater without a permit, which Kimbirauskas suspects led two of the three potential Foster Farms sites to pull their permit applications. The third was granted and then paused-to be under review until October 2024.

In December, the county commissioners voted in favor of a one-mile setback for any new or expanding CAFOs-a huge victory for the group.

But after the decision, there was a lot of pushback. The county commissioners, who had passed the decision but had yet to codify it, reopened the topic for public comment and set another meeting for June, wherein the commissioners would either uphold the previous decision or walk it back.

The comments poured in. The Albany Democrat-Herald reports that nearly 200 people wrote in, both supporting and opposing the setback rule, most in opposition being members of a Facebook group called "Families for Affordable Food." This group mischaracterizes what the setback would actually do, implying it would hinder new farms and ranches in the area, when the focus is actually on large livestock operations.

It wasn't just people in Linn County who wrote in, nor even just in Oregon. People wrote in from the Midwest and the East Coast, above Oregon in Washington and below in California, signifying the cross-country nature of the resistance to factory farming.

"The whole nation is watching us," said Commissioner Sherrie Sprenger. "It's a big deal."

In the end, they voted to maintain the one-mile setback, but only for poultry CAFOs. This is a victory for the group, as well as an indication that more work will need to be done to make the case for holding that setback for dairy and hog CAFOs as well.

"I feel uneasy...This story may not be finished," wrote Tillinghast to Modern Farmer in an email. "But probably no [Foster Farms] CAFOs in Linn County for 2024 anyway."


Lena Beck wrote this article for Modern Farmer.


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Missouri livestock producers are pushing Congress to restore country-of-origin labeling for beef in the next farm bill, believing it'll boost their cattle's market value.

They're also calling on the next administration to finalize rules started by the Biden Administration to ensure fair treatment from large meatpackers and poultry companies.

Tim Gibbons - Communications Director at the Missouri Crisis Center, an organization helping to preserve family farms - said the food system has become increasingly monopolized, due to widespread consolidation.

"Those family farmers go out of business," said Gibbons. "It gives more control over those monopolistic food system, it extracts wealth from our communities. But, it also allows them to charge consumers more because there's a lack of competition in the marketplace."

Gibbons said if finalized, proposed amendments to the Packers and Stockyards Act would set clear guidelines for applying and enforcing prohibitions against unfair practices.

Gibbons explained that the Packers and Stockyards Act, a 100 year-old anti-trust law, hasn't been properly updated until now to tackle modern market consolidations.

He said this leaves small producers at a disadvantage.

"When these new rules become law," said Gibbons, "we're going to work, to push even more on the enforcement of anti-trust laws and the strengthening of those laws, so that we can have real capitalism."

Gibbons emphasized that family farmers in Missouri and across the country are fighting for these laws to secure not only their own livelihoods, but also the future of farming for generations to come.




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A nonprofit is looking to improve the living and working conditions of migrant farm workers in Virginia's Eastern Shore.

Every year, hundreds of people come to the region - often from Mexico - to help harvest tomatoes, potatoes, and other produce. Wages can be good, but life in worker camps is isolating.

Local advocate Stacy Rhodes helps newcomers feel welcome in the community - by providing things like toiletries, t-shirts, and socks.

"They work in mud and in pretty difficult terrain, so they need to be able to clean and change their shoes," said Rhodes. "So providing welcome kits and trying to meet some of their basic clothing needs that they haven't been able to bring is a major activity."

The U.S. Department of Labor strengthened their protections for farmworkers earlier this summer - specifically trying to prevent food companies from exploiting migrant workers.

But Rhodes said more improvements could still be made - like providing better internet access, and air conditioning, and offering reliable transportation to and from towns, banks, and appointments.

Rhodes is a former USAID service officer, and member of the Agricultural Workers Advocacy Coalition - which helps fill in gaps where needs persist.

Another issue is that laborers often face food insecurity during stretches when there isn't work to do and people can't make money. That can happen during bad weather or a weak harvest.

"The workers do not save the pay that they receive," said Rhodes. "They send it home immediately, except for their immediate expenses. So they do not have reserves. And there have been times when the workers here, because of a lack of work, have really undergone food shortages in the camps."

Rhodes said minimum wages and food allowance guarantees could solve this issue.

Last year, the U.S. government issued more than 300,000 visas for migrant ag producers around the world.

This latest federal rule is one of several from the Biden Administration trying to give these workers more flexibility and labor rights.




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By Ben Felder for Investigate Midwest.
Broadcast version by Will Walkey for Oklahoma News Service reporting for the Investigate Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

The cool morning spring breeze hit Saundra Traywick “like a punch to the face.”

Walking through her wooded 38-acre donkey farm in central Oklahoma, Traywick suddenly found it hard to breathe as the air smelled “toxic” and “like death.” 

Less than a mile away, a truck was spreading a chunky dark fertilizer on a hay farm, a familiar ritual in this rural community just beyond Oklahoma City’s northeast suburbs.

But this fertilizer was putting off a smell that Traywick had never encountered. She soon discovered the fertilizer was made from processed sewage.

Converting sewage to fertilizer saves cities money on landfill costs, is a cheaper nutrient-rich fertilizer for farmers, and has become a billion-dollar industry for a handful of companies. However, biosolid fertilizer has been shown to contain chemicals that can harm the environment and human health. 

“Essentially anything that goes down the drain ends up on these fields,” said Traywick, who, months after first learning about biosolid fertilizer, urged the nearby town of Luther to ban it, which city leaders did in 2020.

Scientific studies are increasingly warning about the PFAS chemicals found in biosolid fertilizers. PFAS — short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also called “forever chemicals” — can be found in many water- and heat-resistant products, personal hygiene materials, medication and industrial waste.

But while some states have recently restricted or banned biosolid fertilizer entirely after finding it contaminated farmland and groundwater, Oklahoma lawmakers and environmental officials attempted to take steps this year to protect cities and corporations from liability if new health problems are found. 

The EPA estimates that as much as 3.5 million dry metric tons of treated sewage waste is spread as fertilizer across the country yearly — enough to cover the entire state of Missouri. 

Oklahoma has one of the most extensive biosolid fertilizer programs in the nation, as more than 80% of the state’s wastewater sludge ends up on crop fields, according to Investigate Midwest’s analysis of state records.

Synagro, a Goldman Sachs-owned company that spreads most of the biosolid fertilizer in Oklahoma and across the country, has lobbied against new regulations over “forever chemicals” in its fertilizer, even as it faces lawsuits from farmers claiming its product has devalued their land and created numerous health problems. “Biosolids are a nutrient-rich end-product of the wastewater solids treatment process that have been treated to ensure safe use in agricultural land application,” the company said in a statement. 

The issue has also taken center stage in an Oklahoma state House race, as a longtime lawmaker who uses biosolid fertilizer on his land risks losing to a challenger who wants to end the practice. 

“I’d say it's one of the main issues,” Traywick said about the upcoming state House election. 

While scientists have discovered PFAS chemicals already exist in the blood of nearly every living person and animal on the planet, recent studies have raised concerns about increased PFAS exposure through its presence in biosolid fertilizers, which impacts the air, water and food.

• Air: UCLA researchers found that microplastics in biosolid fertilizer are highly suitable to wind, “thereby increasing … inhalation health risks,” such as lung tissue damage, according to a study published in January. 



• Water: Groundwater near biosolid fertilizer-applied fields often have elevated rates of PFAS, sometimes at higher rates than what is deemed suitable for human consumption, according to a 2024 study published by the American Chemical Society. 



• Food: In 2022, beef from a Michigan farm was contaminated with high levels of PFAS that officials said came from biosolid fertilizers. 

“The scientific community has put a lot more focus (recently) on PFAS and how dangerous they can be even at low levels,” said Jared Hayes, a policy analyst with the Environmental Working Group who specializes in “forever chemicals.” 


In response to growing health concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency recently announced it will require municipal water systems to remove nearly all PFAS substances. These regulations, some predict, could cost as much as $3 billion in new equipment nationwide. 


However, the new rules don’t change the current standards of PFAS exposure in fertilizer. 


“There are a lot of unknowns of what we are going to do with the biosolids,” Hayes said.


Biosolid fertilizer rankled a town and a state House election


Driving down a rolling two-lane road in central Oklahoma, Jenni White lifted her right hand off the steering wheel of her silver Honda CRV to point to another field that uses biosolid fertilizer. 


“That field is one of the worst; I mean, I was hacking up a lung when it was spread, I could not catch my breath, it’s so strong,” said White, pointing through her bug-splattered windshield. 


As she passed the next field, White recalled that the farmer had recently stopped using biosolid fertilizer when his neighbors complained. “I think he just thought it wasn’t worth the hassle,” White said.


White was mayor of Luther in 2020 when Traywick, the area donkey farmer, approached the town with concerns over biosolid fertilizers. White was already aware of its use but believed Traywick’s activism warranted discussion among Luther’s five elected trustees. 


A ban in Luther wouldn’t impact many farmers, as the town is less than five square miles and most of the area farms are outside its boundaries. But the discussion drew a visit from two officials from Synagro. 


One of the officials, identified as Layne Baroldi by the Luther Register, gave a presentation on the benefits of biosolid fertilizer. 


Baroldi said California had some of the strictest environmental regulations in the country — you “can’t cough without getting cited,” so the fact that biosolid fertilizer is allowed there should be reassuring to folks in Oklahoma. “Putting it on the ground was (the) best practice,” Baroldi told the trustees. 


But the presentation wasn’t enough, as the trustees voted to enact the ban. 


(Investigate Midwest spoke to five Oklahoma farmers who use biosolid fertilizers but none would speak on the record due to local opposition. Most said their fertilizer costs would increase significantly if biosolid fertilizer were unavailable. “I got an extra hay cutting this year after using it,” one Oklahoma farmer said.)


While the Luther ban only impacted a few farmers, White, whose term as mayor ended in 2021, believes it was an important message from a community where agriculture remains a vital part of the local identity. 


“We’ve been called a bunch of crazy environmental activists, but I don’t know how it’s crazy to make sure your food and water aren’t contaminated for your kids,” said White, a Republican who drinks from a Donald Trump-themed thermos while driving. 


“A Democrat or a liberal is going to drink the same tainted water that a Republican or conservative is. Everybody is screwed, it’s not a selective screwing,” she added.


But biosolid fertilizer is rankling local Republican politics as it’s become a central issue in the race for House District 32, which is near Luther. 


Incumbent State Rep. Kevin Wallace appeared to be a lock for reelection. He has represented the heavily conservative seat for five two-year terms and has risen up the ranks of Republican politics, including as chair of the high-profile House budget committee. 


However, Wallace’s use of biosolid fertilizer on his land has drawn criticism from voters. During a June 4 candidate forum, Wallace was confronted by some constituents who asked why he wouldn’t come out against the fertilizer, what they called “humanure.” 


“The biosolids sludge is regulated by the Department of Environmental Quality, I have used it twice … it has been legal to use in this state for eight years now,” Wallace said at the forum.


Wallace acknowledged he had received complaints from his neighbors, but “property rights is what I’m for … (and) I’m not breaking the law,” he told the audience. 


Two weeks later, Wallace finished second in the Republican primary, advancing to an Aug. 27 runoff against challenger Jim Shaw, who opposes the use of biosolid fertilizer. 


Wallace declined an interview request but in an emailed statement said biosolid fertilizer was “heavily” regulated at the state and federal levels. 


"I have had the Department of Environmental Quality into the district in the past to answer questions at a forum and the state of Oklahoma has worked directly with top administrators at the EPA in Dallas on this issue to ensure environmental standards are met,” Wallace said in his statement. “The bottom line is, the only alternative to current disposal of biosolids is for more of it to be dumped in landfills, which will create more landfills in rural Oklahoma."


More than 44,000 metric tons of biosolids were applied on Oklahoma fields in 2023, according to records from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, which issues permits to apply biosolid fertilizer. Around 40% of all biosolid fertilizer in the state was processed by Oklahoma City waste. 


Oklahoma has limits for 10 pollutants in fertilizer, including mercury and arsenic. State laws also require fertilizer to have a solid consistency of greater than 50%, be tested for viruses and to raise the pH level, which is most often achieved through the use of lime. 


But Shaw, the District 32 challenger who finished first in the June Republican primary, said if he were elected it would send a message that “the majority of people out here are saying no to this practice.” 


“I would say the awareness of (biosolid fertilizer) has significantly increased in recent months, especially during the campaign,” Shaw said. “I’m all for property rights but my right to swing my fist stops where it hits your nose, … and once (the fertilizer) is applied it does reach beyond the four corners of your property.” 


Federal regulations spurred a biosolid industry controlled by a few companies


When Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1974, cities and towns faced stricter rules on how to process sewage. New biosolid materials needed to be disposed of and a handful of companies launched in an effort to fill the need. 


Business picked up over the years as new rules were set, including a federal ban on dumping biosolid material in the ocean. 


Established in 1986 in Texas, Synagro contracted with hundreds of cities to handle its biosolid waste, including land application as fertilizer. In 2000, the company purchased BioGro, another large biosolid firm, becoming the largest biosolid handler in the nation. 


Synagro is a privately held company, so its valuation isn’t publicly available. However, in 2013 a European investment firm purchased the company for $480 million. 


Since then, Synagro has acquired several other companies, entered the Canadian market and nearly doubled the number of municipal and industrial wastewater facilities it contracts with. 


In 2020, Syangro was sold for an undisclosed price to West Street Infrastructure Partners III, an investment fund managed by Goldman Sachs.


Today, the company operates 24 facilities in the U.S. and Canada and handles 6.5 million tons of biosolid material annually, according to a 2023 company report. 


“Biosolids provide multiple benefits to overall soil quality and health, including improved moisture absorption ability, recycling of micro and macro nutrients, carbon avoidance, reduced nutrient leaching, and lower use of industrially produced chemical fertilizers," a company spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to Investigate Midwest. "U.S. EPA and state environmental agencies have approved and regulated biosolids for decades and multiple risk assessments and scientific studies have found that biosolids recycling presents little to no risk to human health and the environment.”


Synagro handles much of the biosolid material produced by Oklahoma City’s wastewater system, although it doesn’t contract directly with the city. 


Oklahoma City contracts with Inframark to manage its wastewater system. Inframark then sells the biosolid material to Synagro. 


“The City of Oklahoma City (does not) have a direct contract with Synagro,” said Jasmine Morris, a spokesperson for the city, when asked why Investigate Midwest was unable to get a Synagro contract through an open records request. “Under contract with (Oklahoma City), Inframark is responsible for the disposal of biosolids. Under said contract, what Inframark self-performs, or who they subcontract to, is at their discretion. Currently, they are using Synagro South LLC for this activity, but the terms of their contract with Synagro are not disclosed to (the Oklahoma City Water Utilities Trust).”


Amid the increased focus on PFAS chemicals in waste and fertilizer, Synagro has also lobbied to ensure cities and companies are not held liable. 


In 2022, the company created a nonprofit business association called the Coalition of Recyclers of Residual Organics by Practitioners of Sustainability (CRROPS). Synagro’s CEO, Bob Preston, serves as chairman of the organization, which has spent $220,000 on federal lobbying since its founding, according to lobbying disclosure forms. 


Last year, as the EPA considered new rules on PFAS levels in drinking water, the coalition urged lawmakers to shield companies and cities from legal liability. 


“We write to urge that any legislation … include a specific provision to ensure that the organizations we represent are explicitly recognized as ‘passive receivers’ of PFAS and afford these essential public services a narrow exemption from liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA),” CRROPS wrote in an Aug. 24, 2023 letter. 


But as Synagro attempts to someday prevent lawsuits, legal challenges have already arrived. 


Earlier this year, five Texas farmers sued Synagro, claiming their properties were “poisoned by toxic chemicals” in the biosolid fertilizer the company spread on nearby farms. Some of the plaintiffs also claim they began suffering from respiratory problems and skin irritation when the biosolid fertilizer was spread. 


Many of the plaintiffs also claim their groundwater has elevated levels of PFAS, with one farmer stating that a serving of one fish from his pond would exceed the EPA's recommended PFAS exposure by 30,000 times.


For the past five years, Synagro has contracted with the city of Fort Worth to manage its biosolids programs and has spread the processed waste in 12 north Texas counties. The lawsuit claims Synagro should have issued stronger warnings about its fertilizer product. 


“Synagro knew, or reasonably should have known, of the foreseeable risks and defects of its biosolids fertilizer,” the lawsuit states, which was filed in Maryland, where Synagro is based. “Synagro nonetheless failed to provide adequate warnings of the known and foreseeable risk or hazard related to the way Synagro (Granulite) was designed, including pollution of properties and water supplies with PFAS.” 


In a statement to Investigate Midwest, Synagro denied the allegations, calling them “unproven and novel.” 


“As a matter of fact, without any response from Synagro, the plaintiffs have already amended the complaint to drastically reduce the concentrations of PFAS alleged in the complaint when it was originally filed,” the company said in an emailed statement. “The biosolids applied by a farmer working with Synagro met all U.S. EPA and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) requirements. U.S. EPA continues to support land application of biosolids as a valuable practice that recycles nutrients to farmland and has not suggested that any changes in biosolids management is required.”


Some push for nationwide regulations 


As Synagro lobbies for federal liability protections, lawmakers in Oklahoma recently considered a similar proposal that would protect cities and companies from lawsuits if the biosolids they produce and convert into fertilizer were later found to be harmful. 


Oklahoma House Bill 2305 stated that a waste management or disposal company, along with a public wastewater treatment facility, “shall not be liable … for costs arising from a release to the environment of a PFAS substance” as long as state laws are followed. 


The bill received overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House and Senate but failed to receive final approval before the legislative session ended in May.


During an April 4 Senate committee hearing, Sen. Dave Rader, a Tulsa Republican, presented the bill and said he wanted to ensure cities were protected from liability since they were not responsible for producing the chemicals found in biosolid fertilizers. 


But one lawmaker asked if the bill would still protect polluters. 


“Does this create an alibi for the person who pollutes a water source and says, ‘I followed the state procedure, so it's not my fault?’ ” asked Sen. Dusty Deevers, an Elgin Republican. 


“I suppose it could,” Rader answered. 


Scott Thompson, then the director of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, was also in the room supporting the bill.


“(Cities and towns) are receiving this PFAS in the waste stream … what we are concerned about is the future liability under the federal law as they get passed,” Thompson told lawmakers. “(The EPA) is going to very tiny numbers that we have to measure and essentially creating potential liability for everyone that has to receive this and manage it.” 


Asked about Thompson’s comments, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality officials reiterated their support.


"DEQ would support some version of federal legislation that provides protection for certain passive receivers who provide critical, public health services,” said Erin Hatfield, the agency’s director of communications and education. “As for increased PFAS standards, DEQ would like to see additional research done to further determine health impacts related to PFAS and standards based on scientific findings."


Other states have said the health impacts are already apparent and biosolid fertilizer should be banned or severely restricted. 


In 2022, the Maine legislature banned the use of biosolid fertilizer and allocated $60 million to help contaminated farms, including many dairy farms that were forced to shut down. 


In Michigan, where cattle farms have been forced to shut down due to tainted beef, biosolid PFAS standards are stricter than in most states. The state also has an aggressive investigation program to try to identify the specific source of PFAS contaminants. 


However, some environmental watch groups have scoffed at a state-by-state approach, calling for nationwide regulations instead. 


Earlier this year, the Maryland-based environmental nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, sued the EPA over the lack of biosolid fertilizer standards. 


“EPA has deemed it acceptable for biosolids containing PFAS and other known toxic chemicals to be applied directly to soil as fertilizer, where these man-made contaminants then build up in the environment, exacerbating the PFAS contamination crisis,” Tim Whitehouse, PEER executive director, wrote in a Feb. 22, 2024 letter to the EPA. “This is not protective of human health or the environment.”


The EPA declined to comment on pending litigation. 


While the EPA has made progress on congressionally-mandated PFAS rules related to drinking water, it has yet to complete a risk assessment of PFAS in biosolid, according to tracking by the Environmental Working Group nonprofit. 


“We are really hoping to see them finish that up by the end of the year and to really get a good picture of just how much of our overall exposures to PFAS is the result of PFAS in biosolid potentially contaminating our food supply and our environment,” said Hayes, the policy analyst with EWG. “In the meantime, states have been leading the charge and taking action.”




Ben Felder wrote this article for Investigate Midwest.


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