The Hidden Chemicals Destroying American Farms

okay [Music] they're getting Mom come on all right hold on I'm trying to get him up [Music] this Farm has been an agrostic name over 100 years we went from knocking cows back in the beginning history of this farm and went to raising beef cattle and got my license to sell directly to public you work hard for what you have and you have a legacy and you build for generations to get where you're at this is all I've ever done that's all I've wanted it was all taken away from me in one Swoop a big business dumping pfas down the drain there's a reason that they're covering up what they do because they knew [Music] [Music] [Music] how's it going Jason thank you for having us out here so tell me a little bit about your family farm here uh right now there is 70 I think there's 71 cows out here right now had made a great Marketplace myself our sales have climbed 20 30 every year for the last four or five years we were planning on building a storefront I was GMO free we want to grow a safe crop we want to raise a safe animal we want to raise it clean thought we were doing everything right when did this nightmare begin for you the nightmare itself really started probably in November of 2021. the government come to me and and said they want to do a biosolid study they come in here and did a mass testing four or 500 soil samples and then in December of 2021 they wanted meat samples were you nervous at that point oh yeah I was I was scared game the meat samples and uh a month later they notified me that all we need to do is zoom meeting with you on on Thursday and I'm like yeah whatever no big deal and when I got on a zoom meeting it was four people I've never met before and the guy's like oh we're so sorry this is happening blah blah blah and I stopped I'm like what are you talking about he goes you don't know and I said no I don't know he goes oh he says you're pre fast in your meat pfas are known as forever chemicals they were largely introduced to the world in the 1950s by 3M and later on Dupont which made Teflon Teflon has a great future and its uses will be many as early as the 1970s 3M discovered that the chemicals were quote more toxic than anticipated an internal document from 1981 found C8 a type of pfos in the blood of eight female employees two of them had children with birth defects now there are thousands of pfas in nearly everything we touch or consume they're considered some of the most persistent toxic compounds in existence they can build up in our blood and organs when ingested and have been linked to a number of serious health problems including thyroid disease liver damage cancer and fertility issues when they were found on grostic's land more than a year ago Michigan Regulators shut down his farm and ordered a seizure notice he's now barred from selling his meat indefinitely first time I heard about pfas was the day that we received the seizure how many characters can you get on there when it happened we were good we were selling the most meat we have we have the most amount of animals we've ever had on this Farm we were at the farmer's market we had a really good base of customers I work at Livingston Educational Service Agency we do preschool programs and we sold meat to where I work Farm to Table and we were feeding it to the children the next few months got a little difficult because I had to watch my husband start to sell pieces of the farm he had to have an auction it all got on display right here in front of our house for weeks and then it was all gone so just to watch him have to see that dream go away it was uh it was really hard we knew right away it was the biosolids that that was the Cooperative where everything was coming from bile sods were a great fertilizer source for us to go along with the operation in the early 1990s 90 waste from weight mint plants so it recommended using biosolids which are essentially treated sewage from homes and businesses as fertilizer but nearly 30 years later in 2018 the epa's office of the Inspector General admitted the agency didn't know the impact that pollutants and biosolids could have on Health in the environment regardless States continue to offer biosolids to Farmers in some cases for free [Music] how much was going undetected to the city for many years and of course unfortunately to the detriment of Mr drastic right the state just wasn't doing this investigation on a whim they didn't just pick Jason grassic out of a hat and go to his property in the you know Farmland in Howell Michigan and say hey let's see if pfas is here no this was a lengthy ongoing study in 2018 Michigan did something that had never been done before in the U.S it tested water across the State for pfas Michigan was testing the waters of the state to determine are there high levels of pfos in any of them and if so where's it coming from and one of the bodies of water was the Huron River sure enough the Huron River did have high levels of pfas so they tested Upstream to figure out where it's coming from and they determined there was a large amount coming from the Wixom wastewater treatment plant so the state tested the various input points and determined that the highest test by far by thousands of times was trigar [Music] for big names in the Auto industry including Ford and did they know that they were doing that I guess what I would tell you is the law says it doesn't matter the law says that if you didn't know shame on you if you did know shame on you but the point is you got to know it's in your waist if you are going to dump toxic Industrial Waste into a wastewater treatment plant you have to know what's in it an internal memo obtained by Vice news shows that tribar was using pfas chemicals in its chrome plating plant since at least 2008 and that tribar did not test for the chemicals local regulations did not require them to so when Jason crostic first accepted biosolids from the state of Michigan in 2010 it was contaminated with the chemicals coming out of tri-bar right here paragraph 11 the monitoring and testing data of tri-bar manufacturing discharges shows that tri-barb has violated Wastewater discharge permit in August 2022 grostic filed a lawsuit against tribar for millions of dollars an early estimate put soil remediation alone at more than 600 million dollars we've got grant money from the government that's buying us speed but that still doesn't begin to cover the extra cost of doing business the way we're doing business it gets tougher every day wanting to do it because there's no income from it what's the last year been like for you I tell people now it's like dying of cancer it's there and you don't know when it's going to happen realistically I don't think I have a future anymore nobody's ever going to buy meat for me again are you all planning for what five months from now looks like no it scares the out of me it's all I've ever done I built a reputation to sell beef and build for lack of better terms an Empire that my kids could run and now there's nothing you ready bud who do you blame in all this I want to say I blame the government for allowing sludge to be applied to the farmland but really I blame Corporate America the worst because they get away with anything they want they can dump stuff down the drain they can poison this they can do that and nothing ever happens to them I'm mixing up the feed so the cows can eat it [Music] 'll never be the same old same old bud [Music] when Michigan found that tribar was a source of pfas contamination they asked the company to install filters and it worked initially [Music] [Music] it's so hard to get any of these guys on the phone but Vice news spent nearly a year investigating tribar's environmental record and found a pattern of serious violations some of which are still happening today [Music] we spoke with more than a dozen former and current employees at tribar they all requested anonymity could you introduce yourself in a way that will maintain your anonymity anything you can tell us about your role at tribar I was in a management role with a very intricate knowledge of the inner workings why did you eventually decide to leave you know you have a ethic code you have a reputation intact people just seem really terrified of speaking out why is that it wouldn't be very uncommon for someone to inspired or laid off [Music] you have very toxic and hazardous chemicals that have a specific process that we will go through and people that were very critical to daily operations started leaving why is that and and what effect does that have on the operation there at one point in time these were two separate companies you had a death plastic finishing in their tribal manufacture you know those are privately owned a bunch of individuals but at some point in time they were required by this private Equity Group called them HCI Equity Partners a Washington dc-based firm acquired tri-bar in 2015. according to employees that's when things got even worse obviously with the new Equity Firm taking over we noticed cost cutting how quickly did you notice it immediately so what was the priority for them finances did that priority in some cases impact environment health and safety of the community everybody yes it was it was all all money driven before we've worked that people were proud of you and was being compromised and they were being asked to cut corners and do things faster and efficiently how does that affect safety and you know Health really of the community especially not being placed with the adequate I'll guide my knowledge you know I never really had any experience I mean it was a shipping clerk before you took on this what I would consider a major role within the company you're creating an environment that is just a ticking timeout [Music] tribar did not accept repeated interview requests in a statement tri-bar and HCI said that they have invested more than 42 million dollars in their facilities and Equipment including sophisticated environmental controls they also said quote no one has been fired or laid off for identifying a potential issue however multiple sources told Vice news that they are still concerned with how the company handles pfas chemicals processes like the granular activated carbon system for the p-files the whole reason for that gag system is for pfos remediation so this is a carbon filtering system that strips the pfos out of the exact Wastewater exactly when that gag system is running the way it's supposed to that outcome for B Foss is non-detect system catches why isn't the gag system working properly to filter it out and you saw that firsthand there did you feel pressure from Executives to keep the plant going when things weren't going well what did that pressure look like [Music] it's all their pushes to make it run make it run make it run and in order to run they got to get that Wastewater out that is correct doesn't tri-bar have to abide by certain regulations around what levels of pfas have to be at before water is released every document for the past 20 this is missing I've seen them have put hands on them then the day the investigators come in they're gone don't nobody knows where they are um it was we're actually the right person for this job was there any question in your mind why they were starting to treat you that way into the documentation tribar denies failing to properly document or respond to environmental concerns in a statement they said they will quote continue to take our responsibility as a good corporate citizen very seriously but Eagle Michigan's environmental agency confirmed they have issued tribar 15 different violations in the last year including for missing documentation and for not keeping accurate records Eagle did say tribar's pfas emissions were in compliance with state regulations in 2022. why did you decide to do this interview [Music] and it's affecting lives if you lose your job over this will it have been worth it [Music] mortgage Bill property taxes membership dues for MCA loader payment skill loader payment health insurance all in grand total on an average every month eight thousand dollars basics you know if I don't start getting some money income real soon it's not going to last much longer the stress it's ridiculous it really is um not knowing every day I had concerns that that he could have hurt himself because he was so depressed not knowing what was going to happen I worried like if you went down and do chores if he was going to come back because you hear about it all the time um Farmers taking their own lives and I asked him straight up I said I need to know like have you thought about this is this something on your mind because we have kids and he said no way no way does your wife have good reason to worry about you yes and no I mean it I don't care how strong of a mindset you have like this will ruin you [Music] when grostic's Farm was shut down he had already sold hundreds of pounds of meat to multiple customers you're gonna want to watch your stuff they're really steep they're old [Music] this is what's left of the last cow well there's some pig in here too but so this is meat that you got from crosstix Farm both the pork and the beef yes okay and we've been eating his meat now for seven years I believe so what was it like to First learn that you know these chemicals were in it what would it do to me was the first question which I never really got an answer to the other thing was is it going to kill us to eat it are you guys still eating this meat yes we are how'd you make that decision well at this point we've already eaten the worst why Why Stop do you know what the levels of pfas are in this meat well yeah the state had just sent me I finally got the paperwork today showing the levels these two are this cow in here 4.02 parts per billion is that right yeah and so do you know what that means no not really so the state sent you this but they don't tell you what it means no no basically this is what they sent me U.S Food and Drug Administration Department of Agriculture both have not set pfas limits in food or livestock but the European Union has based on their guidance a person eating a pound of meat from John tisher's freezer would be exposed to about five times more than the weekly recommendation [Music] I mean the one thing that is clear is all this meat has pfas in it yes so what are you gonna do I'm not real sure what we're gonna do yet we are talking about moving to a place where we can raise a couple cows and take care of it ourselves grostic's case is not an isolated incident Nationwide about 20 million Acres of U.S cropland might be contaminated by biosolids according to a recent estimate but the real total is unknown and experts say could be much higher we're in East China Michigan which is right on the Canadian border and we're here to meet a chemical engineer who worked with Dupont for more than 40 years and since retiring she's switched teams she now works with environmental groups to help them understand the impact of forever chemicals I worked 42 years for Dupont I worked this summer in 1976. that's the summer I got pregnant with my oldest and that I worked in Teflon they thought of it as the cleanest place in the plant best place to work our site was the sole supplier of Teflon for food contact until 1985. so it's a great history right this at this point to better understand how many farms have been affected by pfas contamination Denise trabic pointer started tracking where biosolids have been spread in Michigan so far she's mapped hundreds of sites we're looking at lower Michigan right now the red our wastewater treatment plants blue is where biosolids have been land applied so I started adding things like tanneries paper mills or another they use their residuals to land apply also over 2100 locations likely to have pfas so this is Jason grostek's Farm what are these other surrounding dots represent these are other Farms these have used biosols yes very highly contaminated biosolids they used it for years it's the same I have salads wow so he's really not an outlier obviously the state of Michigan has tested grostic's Farm have they tested other Farms as far as I know they haven't tested any of the other Farms in part the Michigan pfas Action Response Team confirmed that they have no plans of testing other Farms unless the agency's ongoing work identifies new toxic areas there's the Jack Pines Property Jack Pine is a pork Farm in western Michigan and one of the sites tracked by traffic pointer in the 1990s they used waste coming from a leather Tannery as fertilizer more than 30 years later testing of the Farm soil showed levels of pfos five times higher than those found on Jason grosticsland pfoa pfos or two well-known pfas if you can detect it it's too much they know it's in the fields they know it was in the pig's water they know that it was probably in some of the food that they ate but they never tested the animal's manure or the pigs way over there is some of the hog buildings these are in operation because Michigan Regulators didn't test the Hogs from Jack Pine they could continue selling them the impact this has had on America's food supply is unknown according to internal notes from Eagle there might not be records of the animals after they were slaughtered and moved to the food chain to date the state has only tested animal products at grostic's Farm that's unsurprising testing of any kind could show more contamination during the 2019 National pfas Conference a state official admitted as much saying that testing milk would put Farmers out of business problem of trying to dig this up is once you dig it up where are you going to put it I don't even dislike Ohio that much that I'd send it there my husband Joel and I we bought our first home we thought it was our dream home it was literally surrounded by Christmas trees it turned out that Christmas tree farm was actually a place that dumped Tannery waste for years and years and years so it got into the water and it's contaminated 25 square miles of my community besides knowing what's in my water I wanted to know what's in my blood it costs eight hundred dollars to test your blood and I was hearing don't worry about it it's got minor health things you don't need to worry I looked at the men and said you know my husband just died of liver cancer my blood came back at five million parts per trillion so I have some of the highest levels of pfots I guess in the world though I don't think it's a contest I went in for a thyroid ultrasound I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer that had metastasized to my lymph nodes I had to have 23 lymph nodes removed in a thyroidectomy and I just had my blood tested again and now I'm down to a measly 3.5 million parts per trillion so at this point if I live to be 240 I am good life has enough worries and then you have to go home and go oh wow you can't drink the water is it really safe to take a shower is it really safe to water your dogs is it really safe but what what is somebody going to do there's nothing to get it out of your system why didn't somebody acknowledge or tell us because obviously they've known for a while this field here probably has not been exposed to bile solids I'm going to say in probably 10 or 12 years we no longer allowed to let our cattle Beyond this pasture because of this stupid pfos in my soil you don't get to see it you don't smell it you don't know it but it's here [Music] so you know of farmers who are still using biosolids yes there's there's there's several guys that still use it that I know of locally I mean knowing the risks why are people still using it it's free it's free nutrients that is thirty thousand dollars that I saved not buying commercial fertilizer and the government's telling you it's safe why not right I mean the EPA is the one that said that biosols should be applied to farmland in 2021 Michigan became one of the first states to regulate the concentration of pfos and biosolids recently proposed federal regulations regarding pfas in drinking water will limit only six types of forever chemicals but Advocates are pushing to regulate pfas as a class because variations of the chemicals continue to show up in water testing reports so here's the final water I'm surprised at the numbers I would have expected it to be lower if if the system's working the way it should they got a little bit of the 62fts what a plater does they have a bath and they you know they dip the parts and things in the bath it's got chromium and things like that in it the Chrome fumes are bad for the employees so they use AP Foss containing foam to keep the fumes down and it used to be pfos in the state of Michigan they can't use pfos anymore so they changed over to this 62 FTS isn't regulated yet but in the environment they degrade to uh pfoa or pfos I would guess that every electric coating plant in Michigan is probably using it 62 FTS is not regulated by the EPA or by the state of Michigan in water or biosolids documentation reviewed by Vice news shows that tribar has known since at least 2015 that six to FTS could be harmful to the environment are there many other companies around here that are using pfas that you expect are going into waste water there's still fire departments and airports using FIFA's containing foam there's a there's a lot of sources still out there something really comprehensive needs to happen it needs to happen when companies are coming up with new formulations and it needs to be regulatory the beginning when the pforce had come out in the usual awarded to it and the regulations are put in place we did the right things we put processes in place to a thing for able to go back out into the environment anymore but the city is paying more attention to them concerning details regarding a chemical spill in Huron River continue to pour out of tri-bar on the evening of July 29 2022 an operator at tri-bar opened the valve of a 15 000 gallon tank and discharged hexavalent chromium ignoring an emergency alarm that went off 460 times over the course of three hours hexavalent chromium what is that how toxic is it what scrum is a carcinogenous that's the chemical in our boxes so when that employee opened the valve 15 000 gallon tank out the Wastewater went where did it go went right to the public water works how did that Wastewater eventually get into the Huron River Public Water Works discharge to the Huron River and it's an automatic discharge hence the reason why it's important to make those calls immediately the first thing you would do is you'd contact the pollution identification line is that what they did they did not I don't think that it even got reported until more than 48 hours later Vice news obtained foia documents that show that during the Chrome spill the night operator was sleeping in his car instead of responding to alarms while the government has since determined that this spill was smaller than initially feared they issued tribar for serious violations in a statement tribar said they immediately notified authorities about The Spill and that the company has since installed alarms that would automatically shut down their systems local media and communities around here point to The Spill you know that was a major incident to say look this company is not operating responsibly here what our sources tell us is that it really didn't end with this spill they're saying still today this company is operating irresponsibly and it's having a huge impact on their environment in February 2023 Vice news learned of another spill from a tribar plant at about 8 45 this morning are we encountered another chemical spirit why product of our treatment programs the whole course of the game we put probably 55 gallons foreign when asked about this spill tribar said that they worked closely with some local officials to comply with environmental regulations Eagle said that the company reported an instant that involved five gallons of material and that it was cleaned up immediately but Vice news obtained images that clearly showed toxic waste spilled into a drain which flows to waterways that Supply the community's drinking water last five or so years have been a crash course in in pfas for you all how have you worked to address this very complicated problem our wastewater treatment plan is established to deal with uh biological waste right human waste that's what we're set up to treat for we're not set up to treat for chemicals because you know that's not expected to be in the waste treatment but you still have to deal with that Industrial Waste correct but we don't treat for it at our plant level when we became aware of the pfas issue for the first time in 2018 we started to put in what's called industrial pre-treatment programs ipps to uh to deal with those at a sore spaces now that we've become aware of it now those regulations are in place we have a local limit of 11 parts per trillion I think okay I was looking at the levels from Wixom recently in December it showed a pfas called 62 colon FTS which we know is present in the tri-bar facility was at a level of 2400 which was much higher than prior months what would be the reason for that making it to the Wastewater it could be that the carbon absorption that was coming from the the plant changed in some circumstance and could just be that particular sample because when we do sample it's a specific time it's a specific location so when you see those spikes you know one month it's like wow 2400 when it was undetectable before do you go to Tri bar and say hey guys what's going on is there a filtration system that's not working properly you know in that particular case that might be of concern and maybe something that we talk with with eagle about but it's not something that's governed by our local limits but if it continues you know because of patterns right then it trends Vice news reviewed more than six months worth of pfos reports from the Wixom Plant showing elevated levels of 62 FTS from June through December 2022. this one although it's one of the 24 that we're analyzing for right now we have no limit for as as of yet why don't you have a limit for that one there's not enough research that tells us that that we need that one limited that's why we're monitoring for it just like any other chemical that that comes through um Tim I mean this was obviously big in local news but what was it like for you when you got the call that there had been a chrome spell uh the Chrome spill I thought we were talking about what across build it there was this information that something akin to that had happened and it could create an issue down the line uh in our wastewater treatment plant and then we became very involved at that point very concerned about it at that point there were some things that were put in place process changes with the company to make sure that that kind of a situation would not happen again in potentially create a problem when you hear of repeat incidents or allegations what would it take for you to revoke tribar's license to operate I can't really speak to a hypothetical but you know that would be subject to the parameters and the information and what was occurring [Music] hey mister that's not the best spot to be laying [Music] you stand up for me [Music] yeah Mom there he is first baby of 2023 season in our second year of calving with no financial support for the extras that you need [Music] in the next 90 days we could end up with 50 more babies on the ground I mean realistically in another three weeks we should be harvesting feed we should be planting corn ER emptying out the slurry and by third week of May fourth week of May we'd be harvesting hay for the cows but none of that happens anymore I guess a couple months since we since we've been here any word from any word from the government ah we emailed them the end of January we're writing this today to express our desire and need some answers from you and others related to the state of Michigan is January 27 2022 CSU of our farm during the last year we have received very little guidance or information from the state regarding the length of the seizure we have pleading for answers regarding what is to come next for us as parents we want to make sure that we are setting up our children for a future a future rest on excess of the family farm and thriving family business we have created the months are turning into years and we are growing more and more desperate for answers uh what did they say we got an email back from the Attorney General's office uh the middle of February um basically saying that they're going to destroy the herd and uh they're gonna they're gonna kill the cattle yep they they said they'll they're they're gonna take the Catalan and um yeah destroy them lease them out for other schools to do research on they said they can do whatever they want with them but they would not be mine anymore and then they want to put land restrictions on the farm that I have to file with the Deeds office saying that it can never be used for agricultural purposes again [Music] our governor says that she wants this to be a zero tolerance state for pfas well yet they approved I think it's 50 parts per billion of pfos and sludge be applied to the soil that doesn't make any sense and if you want a zero tolerance in a state why is try bar still dumping pfos down the drain what do you want from the government right now I want them to step up and sign on with my lawsuit against try buyer and help us sue them for what they've done to me in our community we've been in touch with eagle but it seems like they just haven't held tribar accountable enough do you have an understanding of why that is shots state of Michigan having major problems when asked about tri-bar's environmental record Ford Motor Company said they're looking for ways to bring on additional suppliers the company also said they did reach out to local and state officials to understand how operations could safely resume at tribar after the Chrome spill foreign received a proposal from the state of Michigan that would decide the fate of his herd settlement discussions between tribar and the state of Michigan are ongoing when you think ahead 10 20 years like what do you want for your kids oh I have no idea I couldn't get past the week let alone a month I don't even try to think that far in advance [Music]

Channel: VICE News

Views: 514,273

Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2023, forever chemicals, toxic waste, toxic waste factory, Farming and Toxic Waste, corporate toxic waste

Id: X9GTa3a-tFo

Length: 42min 47sec (2567 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/StatementBot]

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Sharra_Blackfire:

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Submission statement:

Corporations have been selling/giving away biosolids proclaimed to be "good fertilizer" for years. Recent studies have led to farms being shut down due to high levels of PFAS in the meat. The Huron River has contaminants from Tribar company that exceed safety levels. This practice of sending biosolids to farms as fertilizer, with it leading to these "forever chemicals" contaminating our food and water is a routine practice that isn't regulated, doesn't require permits from companies, and isn't tested routinely. It's happening everywhere. A "farm to table" beef farm had been using biosolids since 2008. In 2021 it was discovered that their beef had unsafe levels of PFAS. This impacts everyone because who knows what's out there in our supply chains and water?

---

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1466qim/pfas_from_biosolids_contaminating_rivers_and_farms/jnomxth/

[u/TraptorKai]

Just throw it on the pile, the pile of world ending things

[u/Sharra_Blackfire]

Submission statement:

Corporations have been selling/giving away biosolids proclaimed to be "good fertilizer" for years. Recent studies have led to farms being shut down due to high levels of PFAS in the meat. The Huron River has contaminants from Tribar company that exceed safety levels. This practice of sending biosolids to farms as fertilizer, with it leading to these "forever chemicals" contaminating our food and water is a routine practice that isn't regulated, doesn't require permits from companies, and isn't tested routinely. It's happening everywhere. A "farm to table" beef farm had been using biosolids since 2008. In 2021 it was discovered that their beef had unsafe levels of PFAS. This impacts everyone because who knows what's out there in our supply chains and water?

[u/FireflyAdvocate]

All these companies get is a slap on the wrist and then lean heavy into doing it again bec of the laughable size of the fines. Then they use all that profit to put together campaigns that gaslight ordinary folks into thinking if we just stop using enough plastic straws or fossil fuels that the earth will be ok. Then they do shit like in this video. Did they know about PFAS chemicals? Yes. Do they care about your cancer? No. In fact, many of these companies make both the cause of and the cure for your cancer. They use your tax dollars to do research and development while also charging us to use the drug.

[u/lightbulbsburnbright]

This just in: meat isn't regulated and it's bad for you

surprised pickachu face

[u/I_like_sexnbike]

Tribal needs to be cut off from the city sewer system. Concrete plug it all. Let them roll in their own waste.

[u/meabandit]

Let the phrase "permeated the hydrosphere" permeate your brain.

[u/birdy_c81]

BINGO

[u/RoboProletariat]

Farms also use plastic coated fertilizer pellets.