{"id":22280,"date":"2025-02-14T16:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T17:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22280"},"modified":"2025-02-14T17:29:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T17:29:00","slug":"texas-county-declares-an-emergency-over-toxic-fertilizer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22280","title":{"rendered":"Texas County Declares an Emergency Over Toxic Fertilizer"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Johnson County is seeking federal assistance, saying its farmland has become dangerously contaminated with \u201cforever chemicals\u201d from the use of fertilizer made from sewage sludge.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

A Texas county is taking steps to declare a state of emergency and seek federal assistance over farmland contaminated with harmful \u201cforever chemicals,\u201d as concerns grow over the safety of fertilizer made from sewage.<\/p>\n

Johnson County, south of Fort Worth, has been roiled since county investigators found high levels of chemicals called PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, at two cattle ranches in the county in 2023.<\/p>\n

The county says the PFAS, also known as forever chemicals because they don\u2019t break down in the environment, came from contaminated fertilizer used on a neighboring farm. That fertilizer was made out of treated sewage from Fort Worth\u2019s wastewater treatment plant. A New York Times investigation into the use of contaminated sewage sludge as fertilizer focused in part on the experience of ranchers<\/a> in Johnson County.<\/p>\n

PFAS, which is used in everyday items like nonstick cookware and stain-resistant carpets, has been found to increase the risk of certain types of cancer, and can cause birth defects, developmental delays in children, and other health harms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

County commissioners passed a resolution this week calling on Texas governor Greg Abbott to join the declaration, and seek federal disaster assistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is uncharted territory,\u201d said Larry Woolley, one of the county\u2019s four commissioners, in an interview. The funds, he said, would be put toward testing and monitoring of drinking water, cleanup, as well as euthanization of cattle contaminated from the soil, crops and water.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnson County is seeking federal assistance, saying its farmland has become dangerously contaminated with \u201cforever chemicals\u201d from the use of fertilizer made from sewage sludge.A Texas county is taking steps to declare a state of emergency and seek federal assistance over farmland contaminated with harmful \u201cforever chemicals,\u201d as concerns grow over the safety of fertilizer made from sewage.Johnson County, south of Fort Worth, has been roiled since county investigators found high levels of chemicals called PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, at two cattle ranches in the county in 2023.The county says the PFAS, also known as forever chemicals because they don\u2019t break down in the environment, came from contaminated fertilizer used on a neighboring farm. That fertilizer was made out of treated sewage from Fort Worth\u2019s wastewater treatment plant. A New York Times investigation into the use of contaminated sewage sludge as fertilizer focused in part on the experience of ranchers in Johnson County.PFAS, which is used in everyday items like nonstick cookware and stain-resistant carpets, has been found to increase the risk of certain types of cancer, and can cause birth defects, developmental delays in children, and other health harms.County commissioners passed a resolution this week calling on Texas governor Greg Abbott to join the declaration, and seek federal disaster assistance.\u201cThis is uncharted territory,\u201d said Larry Woolley, one of the county\u2019s four commissioners, in an interview. The funds, he said, would be put toward testing and monitoring of drinking water, cleanup, as well as euthanization of cattle contaminated from the soil, crops and water.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22282,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22283,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22280\/revisions\/22283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}