The sale of raw or unpasteurized milk generally is illegal in Wisconsin, although “incidental sales” are legal.
An incidental sale is when a dairy farm sells raw milk directly to a consumer at the farm.
But those sales are illegal “if done as a regular business, or if they involve advertising of any kind.”
Robert Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, has indicated he would promote raw milk.
Public health authorities consider raw milk a health danger because it hasn’t been pasteurized — heated enough to kill illness-causing bacteria such as E. coli. But 13 states allow raw milk sales in stores. Advocates say it’s more nutritious, though experts say there isn’t enough evidence to prove that.
A Wisconsin Senate bill introduced in December 2023 would have created licensing for farms that want to sell raw milk. It failed to pass the Senate.
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When farmer Trent Gerlach found out a solar farm would be built on the land he had long worked in northwestern Illinois, he was disappointed.
“As a farmer, seeing that land taken out of production is difficult, when you farmed it for many years, you’ve been stewards to that land, fertilized that land, taken care of it as if it was your own,” he said.
Gerlach’s family had been raising corn, soybeans and livestock since 1968, and like many farmers, they leased farmland in addition to working their own land. And when the owner of one of those leased parcels decided to work with Acciona Energia to help site its High Point wind and solar farm, Gerlach initially was not enthusiastic.
“The thought of taking productive farm ground out of production with solar panels was not, in my personal opinion, ideal,” he said.
But Gerlach was determined to make the best of the situation.
Ultimately, that meant a win-win arrangement, where Acciona pays him to manage vegetation around the 100 MW array of solar panels that went online in early 2024. Gerlach does that with a herd of 500 sheep.
“We don’t own the land, we don’t get a say — that’s landowners’ rights, and I’m very pro that,” Gerlach recounted. “In U.S. agriculture, the biggest thing that gets farmers in trouble is saying, ‘that’s how we’ve always done it so that’s what we’re going to do.’ Renewable energy is probably not going anywhere, whether you’re for or against it, it’s coming, it’s what’s happening. As an agriculture producer, we’re going to adapt with it.”
Acciona regional manager Kyle Charpie said that sheep grazing appears an especially promising form of agrivoltaics, and one that the company is likely to continue exploring globally. Solar operators need to keep vegetation controlled, and sheep are a more effective and ecological way to do it than mechanized mowing. Acciona has long had a sheep agrivoltaic operation in Portugal, Charpie noted, and two projects in Texas are underway.
“It’s incredibly cost-effective — sheep don’t break down like a tractor; if a tractor blows a belt, you’ve lost a whole day of cutting,” he said. “These grasses grow wickedly fast, it’s that constant presence of the sheep that’s been super super effective. It aligns with our sustainability goals.”
“It’s tough to say we’re the greatest renewable company in the world [if] we have a bunch of tractors running up and down our fields belching out CO2,” he continued.
Another advantage, Charpie said, is that at the end of the solar array’s lifespan, the land beneath it will be restored and refreshed.
“We have all these sheep now who will spend 30-plus years breathing, living, using their hooves to churn up ground, even dying; it’s the circle of life,” he said. “When these farms get turned back to the families, that soil condition will be wonderful.”
‘He saw an opportunity here’
Gerlach’s family had about 50 ewes when the idea for grazing around the solar panels struck. He “hounded” Acciona, in Charpie’s words, to bring an agrivoltaic deal to fruition.
“He saw an opportunity here, and he has been his own best advocate, banging down the door, checking how close are we, when will we get our sheep here,” Charpie said.
Gerlach ultimately bought about 500 sheep of two types: Dorper and Katahdin, small breeds that can fit easily under solar panels.
“The panels create lots of shade — during the heat of the day, they’ll all be underneath the panels for shade,” Gerlach said. “In early mornings, late evenings they’re out grazing aggressively. They don’t bother the panels one bit.”
“We’re stewards of the land, we want healthy ground and livestock. That can marry in fine with clean energy,” says farmer Trent Gerlach. Credit: Acciona
Gerlach said his family “used to raise livestock like everybody did back in the day,” and his farm has won awards for its cattle, but raising livestock has become less profitable in recent years. Agrivoltaics offer an opportunity to delve back into raising sheep, something Gerlach loves. A commercial sheep operation would only be possible with the payments for vegetation management, he said.
“Raising sheep in the United States is challenging because the market for sheep is not very high,” he said. There’s not much of a domestic wool market, and “the meat side of sheep and lamb never really caught on in the U.S. — we’re a beef, pork, poultry-consuming country.”
Gerlach sells the bulk of his lambs around the Easter season, and largely for kosher and halal consumption. Since that market is so limited, the ewes largely earn their keep being paid to graze.
“We love providing stewardship to the animals. That’s what U.S. agriculture was built on hundreds of years ago,” Gerlach said. “It marries really well with our crop production” on nearby land. “In agriculture you need diversification. By bringing sheep and livestock production in, we can afford to hire more full-time employees.”
Sheep are the livestock best suited to agrivoltaics, stakeholders agree.
“You can’t use cattle because they’re too large, they would rub on the panels and break them,” Gerlach said. “You can’t use goats because goats would climb on the panels, and they’re natural chewers, they would chew on the wires.”
The High Point solar array is divided up into separate plots with fences, “like perfect little pens for the sheep,” added Charpie.
In a bigger uninterrupted plot, a farmer would likely need to move water sources for sheep strategically around the area to make sure the animals cover the entire plot. Gerlach’s flock only grazes about a fifth of the Acciona solar array. He’s hoping to expand, though feeding and sheltering sheep during the winter when they can’t graze is costly.
“I’ve got three young kids. Hopefully we raise them in agriculture. It’s such a good practice for our young people to learn responsibility and stewardship,” Gerlach said.
“[The animals] come first, they get fed and watered and taken care of before us. Sometimes agriculture gets portrayed in a poor light, especially larger production agriculture. I try to really push that that’s not everybody. Talk to a local farmer, a local person — you generally see that we’re stewards of the land, we want healthy ground and livestock. That can marry in fine with clean energy.”
Marenda Porter’s new home in Ledgeview, Wisconsin, seemed like the perfect fit for her family of four children. The growing suburb outside Green Bay was a tight-knit community with nearby land for her kids to explore and space for a large garden.
Then there was a knock on the door.
A few days after moving in, concerned neighbors informed her that Ledgeview Farms, a large dairy farm behind her home, was planning to expand, which included building a manure pit to store millions of gallons of waste next to the subdivision.
Over the next several years, Porter began noticing manure runoff in the creek her kids would play in. Originally from rural South Dakota, she had been around farming her whole life, but this felt different.
“We don’t even want to think about health consequences because it’s out of our control, unless we were to pick up and move away,” she said. “But at this point, it’s just not feasible for us to do that.”
Residents, including Porter, openly complained about the farm’s operations and the risk associated with a waste pit near their homes. The town denied the farm’s permit application, saying the expansion would violate a newly updated town ordinance.
In late 2023, the farm responded with a lawsuit against the town.
The legal fight between the large dairy farm and the city government is an example of a growing trend in the nation’s Dairyland. As Wisconsin dairy farms get bigger and municipal and state governments impose new restrictions in response, the dairy industry is increasingly fighting back through the court system.
Many of the dairy farms that have sued municipal and state governments are represented by Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, a national law firm that helped craft state statutes to weaken local control over agriculture.
Since 2018, large Wisconsin dairy farms have filed 13 lawsuits against municipal and state governments, according to an Investigate Midwest analysis of court records and state permitting data for concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.
Dairy farms with roughly 700 or more milking cows are considered CAFOs, requiring a Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (WPDES) permit.
“The trend does seem to be moving up, particularly for CAFOs and state agency-based litigation. The local municipality-based litigation tends to rise, as well,” said Adam Voskuil, a staff attorney at the environmental law firm Midwest Environmental Advocates. He does not represent either party in the Ledgeview Farms lawsuit.
The count only reflects the subset of CAFO conflicts that made it to the court bench: Farms settle many cases with municipalities or state agencies beforehand, sometimes after an appeal or public hearing. Farmers also settle legal disputes with municipalities after filing a notice of claim.
“As data comes out that shows the effects of (CAFOs on) groundwater contamination, local governments and the state government start responding with the authority that’s been given,” Voskuil added.
Dairy cattle can be seen inside Ledgeview Farms on July 23, 2024. (Chris Rugowski for Investigate Midwest)
While the overall number of Wisconsin dairy farms has declined by nearly two-thirds over the past 20 years, the farms that remain have grown bigger.
The state’s dairy industry is estimated to be worth nearly $46 billion, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison research. Most of Wisconsin’s dairy is used to make cheese.
“Demand for dairy products overall, both United States domestic and export demand, continues to grow,” said Charles Nicholson, an agriculture and economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Larger farms mean more cattle. More cattle means more waste and runoff problems for nearby communities, especially in areas of population growth. Livestock waste runoff has been linked to various public health problems such as cancers, infant deaths and miscarriages.
In its lawsuit over the town’s permit rejection, Ledgeview Farms claimed it had a right to farm and use its facilities as it was before the town’s ordinance changed. Farm owner Jason Pansier declined an interview with Investigate Midwest, as did his attorney.
Ledgeview attorney Larry Konopacki said the town has a responsibility to protect various — and sometimes competing — interests, such as the growth of a large dairy farm and the growth of a residential area.
“Frankly we have very limited tools to use because, in Wisconsin, we’re a very pro ag state,” he said.
A large barn operated by Ledgeview Farms is seen on July 23, 2024. (Chris Rugowski for Investigate Midwest)
Years of legal battles
In 2017, Ledgeview Farms applied to build a new manure pit that would hold upwards of 13 million gallons of waste, a move that would allow the farm to increase its herd size.
Porter and her neighbors were worried about the impact of increased waste near homes and bodies of water. Even then-Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy, who lived in the area, expressed concern.
The once-predominantly rural town of Ledgeview had become a hotbed for suburban cul-de-sacs and housing developments. The town’s population increased by a third from 2010 to 2020, topping 8,800, according to U.S. Census data.
The five-county region also had the largest share of CAFOs in the state. The buffer between residential neighborhoods and industrial dairy farms was shrinking.
The town board denied Ledgeview Farm’s permit application to build a new manure pit.
The state’s Livestock Siting Review Board, circuit court and court of appeals all sided with the town’s decision to deny the permit. The farm appealed to the state Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.
In 2021, the farm opened a manure pit in the neighboring town of Glenmore, where it now transports some of its Ledgeview waste. Glenmore zoning administrator Ben Schauer said the pit is in operation and can hold upwards of 20 million gallons of manure.
In addition to denying the permit, the town of Ledgeview ordered the farm to maintain its herd at or below 1,000 animal units and to bring the farm operations into full compliance with state and federal law.
Herd size has been a contentious issue for the farm.
During the permitting process for the manure pit application, Ledgeview Farms declined to provide the town with its herd numbers. In response, the town received a warrant for town inspectors, accompanied by the county sheriff’s office, to carry out an inspection.
But the farm’s owners refused to let town officials take a head count, according to a town memo obtained by Investigate Midwest. While refusal to comply with the warrant could have led to an arrest, town officials eventually asked the sheriff to leave without making any arrests.
In a recent wastewater permit application to the state, Ledgeview Farms said it had just under 2,000 cattle with plans to have more than 3,000 within five years, according to records from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
The Wisconsin DNR declined to comment on legal cases between dairy farms and local municipalities.
In its most recent lawsuit, Ledgeview Farms argued it should be allowed to operate as it currently does because its large, free-stall barn was built before the town’s ordinance reducing the cap on herd sizes.
“Prior to 2017, the Pansiers had in place facilities that allowed them (to have) — and in fact did have — several thousand cows in their facilities,” said Eric McLeod, attorney for Ledgeview Farms, referring to the farm owners during a July 12, 2024, oral argument in Brown County court.
Town attorneys argued in July that the judge should throw out the lawsuit on the basis that the farm was operating illegally prior to the 2017 ordinance.
“The record demonstrates that this is a bad-acting farm,” said Ledgeview attorney Matthew Fischer. “They’ve violated basically every environmental state and federal rule. It’s not surprising that the town wants to stop these violations.”
Neighbors of the farm have seen these violations firsthand.
Porter said she’s witnessed overspreading of manure on nearby fields and found runoff from the farm in her yard. She said neighbors have moved out because the waste and odors were overwhelming.
“We almost never open the windows because it stinks so bad,” she said.
Marenda Porter stands outside her home in Ledgeview, Wis., on July 23, 2024. She moved to the area in 2017 and has experienced numerous problems with a nearby dairy CAFO. (Chris Rugowski for Investigate Midwest)
Litigating for the industry
At the July oral argument hearing, a dozen members of the Pansier family packed the rickety, wooden benches of the small Brown County courtroom. A handful of Ledgeview officials sat on the other side of the room while Ledgeview Farms attorney McLeod said clashes between large farms and suburban residents had become common practice.
“I’ve handled many types of these disputes concerning large dairy farms, and they always arise in the context of when folks build residential developments adjacent to existing dairy farms,” he said. “What happens is the folks who built the homes in rural areas often find that they don’t like living next to a farming operation.”
Litigating these disputes has become a major business for Wisconsin attorneys like McLeod.
In a review of lawsuits filed by CAFO permit holders, Investigate Midwest found the majority have been litigated by the national law firm Michael Best & Friedrich LLP.
Michael Best has five offices across the state and is a member of the Dairy Business Association, American Dairy Alliance and the Wisconsin’s Food and Beverage Business Network.
Their attorneys helped create the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law, which CAFO critics said created industry-friendly standards and prevented local governments from explicitly preventing the expansion of agriculture facilities.
David Crass, who has worked for Michael Best for over three decades, drafted the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law, which passed in 2004. Crass was working for the Dairy Business Association, a registered lobbying organization of dairy producers and farmers, which lobbied for the creation of the law.
The passage of the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law, which went into effect in 2006, “marked a major turning point for the state’s dairy industry — and a signature moment for our agricultural practice, which remains highly attuned to our clients’ issues and needs in the legal, regulatory, and social climates where they operate,” according to the law firm’s website.
Crass and the Michael Best law office did not respond to a request for comment.
Michael Best attorneys have also routinely defended farm operators against fines for violating city permits and local pollution ordinances, Investigate Midwest found in its review of lawsuits.
A creek runs near a Ledgeview, Wis., neighborhood. Nearby Ledgeview Farms has been cited by the state for wastewater pollution into surrounding creeks. (Chris Rugowski for Investigate Midwest)
McLeod, the attorney for Ledgeview Farms, formerly worked for Michael Best, where he represented a large dairy farm in a 2004 legal battle against a rural town in one of the first instances of the law being used in court.
McLeod, who currently works for Husch and Blackwell, declined an interview request with Investigate Midwest.
On the other side of the state, more business groups have become invested in similar legal battles.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business association, recently sued the town of Eureka over an operating ordinance that restricted the operation of CAFOs.
“If we allow local governments like the town of Eureka to violate the law, we’re going to endanger and potentially kill a vital aspect of our state’s economy,” said Scott Manley, WMC executive vice president of government relations, in an announcement of the lawsuit. “These farms already have a mountain of regulations.”
WMC represented dairy industry groups in a lawsuit against the state’s DNR last year. Venture Dairy Cooperative and the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance argued that the department overreaches by requiring CAFOs to have wastewater permits. The case was dismissed. The groups did not respond to a request for comment.
This wasn’t the first time industry groups attempted to deregulate how the state runs its wastewater permitting for CAFOs. In 2017, the Dairy Business Association sued the DNR, claiming the department’s change to runoff management was not practical or science-based for Wisconsin farmers. The association settled with the agency that same year and was represented by Michael Best attorneys in the lawsuit.
The Dairy Business Association declined an interview with Investigate Midwest.
Matthew Sheets, a policy organizer for the Land Stewardship Project, a Minnesota-based sustainable agriculture nonprofit, said municipalities often want to enact controls over CAFOs that cause health or environmental concerns in their community, but the fear of lawsuits and legal battles creates a chilling effect.
“It’s a reinforcement of the idea that if you are large enough and if you have enough money to bring a lawsuit against a municipality and you have more money than they do, they’re going to not want to step in your way,” he said.
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 in early 2019, 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 50-acre 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.
Saundra and Walt Traywick with one of the donkeys on their Oklahoma farm on July 11, 2024. (Ben Felder / Investigate Midwest)
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.
“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.
Jenni White, seen July 11, 2024, was mayor of Luther, Oklahoma, when the town banned the use of biosolid fertilizers. (Ben Felder / Investigate Midwest)
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 some 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 are a nutrient-rich end-product of the wastewater solids treatment process that have been treated to ensure safe use in agricultural land application,” a company spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to Investigate Midwest. “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. 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).”
A man drinks coffee on Main Street in Luther, Oklahoma, on July 11, 2024. (Ben Felder / Investigate Midwest)
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. David 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.”
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The state’s biggest business lobby is helping two residents challenge a Polk County town’s restrictions on livestock feeding operations.
A ruling in their favor could set a precedent for all Wisconsin municipalities seeking to regulate agriculture, a $105 billion state industry.
The lawsuit follows efforts by Republican lawmakers to preempt regulations on farming.
After notifying a northwest Wisconsin town last October of their intent to challenge a local ordinance that regulates livestock farming, two residents last week made good on their promise.
Ben and Jenny Binversie, represented by the legal arm of the state’s largest business and manufacturing lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, are asking a circuit court judge to strike down the rules in the Polk County town of Eureka.
A ruling in their favor could set a precedent for all Wisconsin municipalities seeking to regulate agriculture, a $105 billion state industry.
“This ordinance is quite simply another case of government overreach,” the Binversies’ attorney Scott Rosenow, executive director of WMC Litigation Center, said in a press release.
He did not respond to a request for an interview. Jenny Binversie directed inquiries to Ben Binversie, who declined to comment.
Eureka’s ordinance, revised in March 2022, regulates large livestock farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. It doesn’t regulate where large livestock farms can go, but how they operate.
The regulations apply to new CAFOs, or smaller facilities with common ownership, that house at least 700 “animal units” — the equivalent of 1,750 swine or 500 dairy cows.
The rules require applicants to apply for an operations permit and submit plans for preventing infectious diseases, air pollution and odor; managing waste and handling dead animals. They also mandate traffic and property value impact studies, a pot of money set aside for cleanups and decommissioning, and an annual permit fee — atop costs to review the application and enforce the permit terms.
The Binversies’ attorneys find fault with 18 of the ordinance’s requirements, particularly fees. They also claim thatWisconsin preempts local authorities from passing regulations that are more stringent than the state’s unless authorities can prove they are necessary to protect public health or safety.
Even under that exception, which the attorneys say Eureka doesn’t demonstrate, they contend that more restrictive ordinances cannot add new requirements for which no state standards exist. They also argue Eureka’s ordinance imposes new performance standards that the state must approve, which they say the town hasn’t done.
The lawsuit acknowledges the ordinance’s requirements don’t apply to the Binversies, but the attorneys claim they harm the couple and other Eureka taxpayers because the town will use public funds to compensate local authorities and consultants to review permit applications and enforce the ordinance.
In addition to Eureka, four other northwest Wisconsin towns passed operations ordinances after a developer proposed in 2019 constructing a farrowing operation, known as Cumberland LLC, that would have housed up to 26,350 pigs — the largest swine CAFO in Wisconsin.
A sign opposing a proposed concentrated animal feeding operation that would house thousands of pigs is shown in the town of Trade Lake in Burnett County, Wis., on April 28, 2023. The proposal spurred five northwest Wisconsin towns to regulate big farms, triggering heated debate. One of the towns, Eureka, now faces a lawsuit over its farm regulations. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
An advisory group drafted the regulations to plug gaps in state livestock laws, which they believe insufficiently protect health, property and quality of life. For instance, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources cannot regulate issues unrelated to water quality, including air, noise and vehicle traffic.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s “right-to-farm” law protects farmers from nuisance claims, and livestock facility regulations restrict the use of zoning to control where CAFOs are sited.
No CAFOs currently operate in Eureka, a Polk County community of 1,700, but unlike other towns’ operations ordinances, Eureka’s requires CAFOs that intend to spread manure on fields within town boundaries to obtain a permit.
Another community with a CAFO ordinance, Laketown, also faced a lawsuit.
The two Laketown farm families who challenged its regulations included Michael and the late Joyce Byl and Sara Byl, who are the parents and sister, respectively, of Jenny Binversie. They were likewise represented by WMC Litigation Center. The town of Eureka sought to intervene, noting the two towns’ ordinances are “nearly identical.”
Laketown rescinded its regulations following a change in elected leadership, rendering the case moot.
Trial lawyer Andy Marshall, who represented the community and will do the same for Eureka, questioned whether a Polk County judge would agree that the Binversies have legal standing.
“It’s odd to me that they make the argument that somehow the plaintiffs have been damaged because their taxes will go to the optional hiring of experts,” he added. “It simply hasn’t happened yet.”
The Polk County Justice Center is shown in Polk County, Wis., on April 28, 2023. Two residents are asking a circuit court judge to strike down the rules governing the operation of large livestock farms in the Polk County town of Eureka. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
A judgment against Eureka might invalidate any Wisconsin municipality’s operations ordinance depending on the scope of a court ruling.
Town chair Don Anderson said he is concerned by the lawsuit, but believes the operations ordinance is important. The town of Trade Lake, where the swine farm was proposed and an operations ordinance also enacted, is not so distant from Eureka.
“We’re just wanting to protect ourselves in case it should happen,” he said.
Outside of the court challenges, state lawmakers recently attempted to preempt local farming regulations.
A bill that would have restricted local control passed both chambers earlier this year before Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed it.
The proposal concerned only animal welfare, the administration of medications and vaccinations, and the ways animals are used, but skeptics believed it would have established a legal precedent that could limit any safeguards against potential harms caused by large livestock farms.
A public hearing, where lawmakers discussed the northwest Wisconsin towns, gave them cause to worry.
Lisa Doerr is a former horse breeder who grows forage on her 80-acre property in the Polk County, Wis., town of Laketown. She chaired an advisory group that shaped ordinances to regulate large farms in several northwest Wisconsin municipalities. She is shown on her property on April 29, 2023. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Tim Fiocchi, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s government relations director, expressed alarm that local ordinances, such as Laketown’s, “destabilize agricultural production” by creating a “patchwork of regulatory hurdles.”
Lisa Doerr, a Laketown forage farmer who chaired the town advisory group, said the Binversie case represents the latest effort at “harassing” those who “have the nerve to stand up” to the agricultural industry by enacting ordinances.
“They’ve been telling us for five years that this was illegal, but what did they do over the winter?” she said. “They went to the Legislature and tried to make it illegal because it’s not illegal.”
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.
Research underway at a Madison County solar farm promises to shed light on how well multi-use farming can work at a large scale. The answers will help shape best practices for future projects, while addressing some concerns raised in ongoing debates over siting large solar projects in rural farm areas.
Spread across more than 1,900 acres, the 180 MW Madison Fields project will be one of North America’s largest test grounds for research into agrivoltaics — essentially farming between the rows on photovoltaic solar projects.
As farmers seek to lease land for solar arrays to diversify their incomes, the practice could help them maximize their income and fend off opposition from critics concerned that solar development will take prime farmland out of production.
That number dwarfs the roughly 95,000 acres for certified and other projects noted on the Ohio Power Siting Board’s most recent solar case status map.
Yet solar projects generally deal with big chunks of land at once, while urban sprawl happens bit by bit over time, said Dale Arnold, director of energy policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau. Helping people understand and appreciate that is “absolutely huge,” he said.
Savion, a Shell subsidiary, developed the Madison County project, and it began commercial operation on July 11 with Amazon as the long-term buyer for its energy. Yet work began much earlier this year to set up the site for research by Ohio State University scientists, Savion’s Between the Rows subsidiary, and others.
“People have a lot of questions with regard to energy development going forward in this state,” particularly when it comes to taking land out of use for agricultural production, Arnold said.
Yet today’s industry continues to shift away from coal to a diversified portfolio of natural gas, nuclear, hydropower, wind energy, solar energy and other types of generation. Forecasts also show there will be growing demand for electricity by mid-century, he said.
“Finding a balance where you can do a number of things on the same ground — in this case energy production as well as agricultural production — is obviously huge,” Arnold said. If agrivoltaics is to become more than a buzzword, though, both farmers and solar project developers need to work out best practices.
One big issue is what crops can work well for large-scale utility projects. Compared to most solar farms projects in Eastern and Piedmont states, utility-scale solar projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states can spread across 1,000 acres or more, Arnold said.
“You hear a lot about produce and specialty crops,” for example, said Sarah Moser, Savion’s director of farm operations and agrivoltaics. But raising them is “hard to do on 1,000 acres.”
Hay, you!
Moser and Ohio State University researchers think forage crops like alfalfa and hay hold promise. Operations can be scaled up for large areas, said Eric Romich, an Ohio State University Extension field specialist for energy development. And the crops wouldn’t grow too tall amid the panels.
“We also wanted something that we felt had the potential to be economical,” Romich said.
Two 2023 reports by Ohio State University Extension researchers found raising hay and alfalfa between rows of solar panels was feasible and that the harvest’s nutritive value was good. But that small-scale work at the Pigtail Farms site in Van Wert County used data from only a few test plots and controls, which is an important limitation, Romich said.
Work at Madison Fields will now test whether similar results can be achieved at large scale. Part of a $1.6 million grant from the Department of Energy will help pay for that work over the course of four years.
Other research will test how well plants do in sun versus shade, Romich said. That matters because some portion of the land among solar panels will always be shaded.
Researchers planted the crops on test fields and control areas this spring, with an eye toward starting to collect data next year. “Forages are quite temperamental in terms of trying to get them established,” said Braden Campbell, an animal scientist at Ohio State University who is also working on the project. The team has found compacted soil around the solar panels, “but we are relieved to see that the seeds that we put into the ground are growing,” he said.
Moser plans to work with other crops, too. Soybeans are one example. They were already used as a cover crop before alfalfa and hay were planted. Soybeans can also work into a crop rotation when forage crops need to be replanted every few years.
“The market is there for it, and it does well” as a hardy crop which can also loosen soil and restore nutrients to it, Moser said, adding that local communities have expressed interest in the crop as well.
Send in the sheep
Other work at Madison Fields will explore complementary grazing. The goal is to harvest the forage crops as efficiently as possible. But there will still be a need for vegetation control under and around panels and other infrastructure, said Campbell. So, after harvesting, sheep will go to work.
“To me, that’s three commodities that we can get off one unit of land,” Campbell said: Solar panels will produce electricity. Hay and alfalfa growing will provide a crop. And the land will help support sheep, which in turn can produce meat, milk and fiber.
Other solar farms already use or plan to use sheep for vegetation control. But “there is a big difference” between using sheep to keep plants under control and relying on that for their nutrition, Campbell said.
Studies will need to test the health of sheep that do complementary grazing, compared to other sheep. Other questions include finding optimal grazing rates of sheep per acre, as well as other logistics. But first, the forage needs to establish good roots so it can withstand the pressure of grazing.
Tractors and more
A third bucket of research questions under the Department of Energy grant will focus on farm equipment. Tractors and other farm vehicles need to fit between the rows with their attachments. There’s been a trend in the agricultural sector toward wider equipment, which can cover more ground quickly but may not fit between rows of solar panels, Moser said.
“But a lot of farmers still have smaller equipment,” Moser continued, because some parcels aren’t appropriate for wider machinery. Maneuvering 15-foot-wide equipment works fairly well, and 17-foot and even 20-foot widths can still work.
“I could get my 20-foot drill in there,” Moser said. “I just have to be careful.”
Arnold speculated that some companies may develop special equipment whose attachments can fit under solar panel rows more easily. Other possibilities could include raising panels or even feathering them when agricultural equipment is in use, he suggested.
Farm equipment doesn’t just need to go down an alley between two rows of solar panels. It will also have to turn around at the end to go down another one, Arnold said. So, there needs to be an adequate turning radius, without cables blocking farm vehicles’ paths. Poles, stands, and other equipment also can’t block the path of the farm equipment, he said.
The research can help guide the design of future solar projects to be “hay-ready” sites, Romich suggested. At the same time, agricultural operations shouldn’t jeopardize the safe and efficient operation of a solar facility. “It’s an operating power plant,” Romich said.
Arnold has additional questions about infrastructure needs: What facilities will be necessary to dry, bale and store forage? What facilities will other crops need? And how will they be trucked out to markets?
Likewise, what equipment and facilities will be needed for any sheep kept on site? That includes paddock fencing, water, and so forth. And where will their caretaker live?
“You’re going to have to have people there full-time,” Arnold said.
Precision agriculture
The Ohio State researchers, Moser, and others also wonder how well precision agriculture can work with solar farms. The term refers to methods that rely on technology and data to guide farmers’ work. The range of technologies includes remote sensing of field conditions with drones, in-ground sensors, automated weeders and more.
The big question is which precision agriculture technologies can work well for crops planted between rows of solar panels as they generate electricity.
It’s unclear what any of the studies will show until data has been collected and analyzed, Romich said. By the end, he feels the work will provide a better understanding of what will or won’t work.
Economics questions about business models, contractual arrangements and more also must eventually be worked out, Arnold said. At the end of the day, farmers will need to make a profit if agriculture is to successfully blend with solar projects.
“The possibilities are limitless, really,” when it comes to business arrangements, Moser said. “My motto is always, ‘farmers figure it out.’ And if we work with them, we’ll figure…out how to do this with best practices.”
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