PFAS DISASTER IN JOHNSON COUNTY SHOULD BE A WAKE-UP CALL TO LAW FIRMS

Attend PFAS SUMMIT V in Fort Lauderdale on March 21st-23rd  to learn what your firm needs to know to help farms in your area file claims for PFAS contamination in their water and soil.

Where: The Riverside Hotel in Fort Lauderdale
When: Friday March 21st – Sunday March 23rd 

Register and get your room today while there is still time:

Register: Ray Group - Mass Tort Success

Book your room: Riverside Hotel - Fort Lauderdale (travelclick.com) 

The recent news from Johnson County Texas (see below) will not be the last time areas of the country where biosolids are used for fertilizer on farms, find themselves during a PFAS catastrophe.

The demand for Plaintiff firms willing  and able to represent farms  in PFAS remediation cases  is likely to skyrocket soon since the scenario in Johnson County is common nationwide.

The problem: Over the past few decades, several big agricultural companies began purchasing sludges from public wastewater treatment plants. This sludge consists largely of human waste.

The  same wastewater treatment plants also take in spent water from factories and other industrial facilities where PFAS is used.  A portion of any of the PFAS in the water attaches to the sludge and when the sludge is drawn off and composted for biosolid use in farming, the PFAS survives in higher concentrations due to the decay of other materials in the sludge.

The issue with biosolids combined with the water contamination from factories PFAS in water used to water crops has led to many of the nation’s farms having PFAS levels in their water and their soil that could lead to livestock death or the inability to sale their life stock, dairy products or crops.

PFAS farm remediation claims can run into many millions of dollars for a single farm because it is not only the water that needs to be cleared of PFAS, but also the soil. Additionally, many of these plaintiffs may have other economic damage arising from livestock, crops and dairy products they cannot take to market.

RECENT NEWS FROM JOHNSON COUNTY TEXAS

On February 11, the Johnson County Commissioners Court passed a resolution seeking to have Texas Governor Greg Abbott declare a state of emergency due to high levels  of PFAS contamination found in the drinking water as well as the soil of local farms.

The Johnson County resolution came after several months of investigation resulting from a Johnson County Farmers having cows die suddenly. Later it was determined that the cattle deaths were due to PFAS contamination in the water they drank , due to run off from nearby farms that had spread bio-solids purchased from Synagro.  Groups of Johnson County Farmers have filed legal action against Synagro as well as against the EPA seeking declaratory relief aimed at preventing the PFAS disaster in Johnson county from worsening.

  
While the Johnson County disaster is newsworthy alone, our own investigations have found an even more alarming potential disaster.

The biosolids purchased from Synagro originated from a Fort Worth Waste Water Treatment Plant. The same PFAS contaminated  Fort Worth biosolids are composted by spreading them on the ground on the banks of the West Fork of the Trinity River. (see image below)

The location above Fort Worth, where these same biosolids sit for long period of time, subject to rain and other forces causing the PFAS in these biosolids to leach into the Trinity River puts their entry point upstream from waters from which over 14 million Texans get drinking water. 

Much of  the brown around the red pin is biosolids from the water treatment plant laying out in the open. You can see this more clearly if you pull up the address above in Google Earth.

In the same manner the PFAS leached from the biosolids in Johnson County into streams and ponds the doomed cattle drank from, the same bio solids sit North of Fort Worth on the banks of the West Fork of the Trinity River upstream from public water systems that draw and treat water (without removing the PFAS) that is then delivered to the homes of over 14 million Texans. 

The  PFAS concentrations that reach humans from contamination of the larger volume Trinity River should not be high enough to cause death from short term exposure as was the case for the cows drinking from small water volume sources. However, the PFAS concentrations reaching humans will accumulate over time and put these 14 million plus Texans at higher risk of certain cancers and other injuries associated with PFAS exposure. 

Regional Planning

the majority of the Trinity basin (81%) falls into one of two regional planning groups: Region C or Region H (Fig. 2a). Region C is centered around the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex in the upper basin and lies almonst entirely (80%) within the Trinity basin. Further to the south, Region H is focused around the Houston area, however, only 29% of that region is within the Trinity basin. This is despice the fact that the Trinity supplies the majority of Region H's surface water supplies. By 2070, regional planning estimates project the 51% of Texas' population will live within Regions C and H. The 2021 Regional water plans were approved by TWDB in 2020. Overviews of the plans for Region C and Region H are included below.

You do not want to miss PFAS SUMMIT V, so register and book your hotel room today!

Where: The Riverside Hotel in Fort Lauderdale
When: Friday March 21st – Sunday March 23rd 

Register and get your room today while there is still time:

Register: Ray Group - Mass Tort Success

Book your room: Riverside Hotel - Fort Lauderdale (travelclick.com)