Neighbors In Northeast OKC Share Stories Of Illness From Farm Sludge

<p>Families in Jones are starting to connect the dots of their varying chronic illnesses. They believe everyone in the area is getting sick from sludge being used on nearby farms. Now they are coming together to research the bacteria in the air and aquifers and seek an end to the practice.</p>

Sunday, September 25th 2016, 6:24 pm

By: News 9


Neighbors in northeast Oklahoma City and the Jones area are joining forces to put an end to the use of sludge on farmland.

Some have already spoken at recent city council and spoke with Jones Public School administrators, saying the use of biosolid is making them sick. They received promises of further studies on the health impacts of sludge, but one mom says she has already done the research and it is time for the practice to stop.

Paula Yockel says she has spent more than $10,000 on air and water sample studies and believes the fertilizer being used on nearby farms is behind her son's constant illnesses. Now she is learning that other neighbors are battling cancer, lupus and other chronic diseases.

Related Story 8/30/16: Metro Neighbors Say Farm Sludge Is Making Them Sick

“We got sick immediately, and we’ve been sick ever since,” said former Jones Public Schools superintendent Mike Steele, after his family moved next to a farm that uses sludge in 2000.

“They call it biosolid. I call it biohazard,” Carol Steel, a nurse, said.

Carol suffers thyroid problems, her father-in-law contracted kidney cancer and Parkinson’s disease and her son now has neurological damage from suffering too many infections as a child.

As News 9 has reported, Oklahoma City uses 80,000 tons of the sewage byproduct, which includes human and medical waste, each year. It is a practice that has been ongoing since the early 80s, but the EPA and other regulating agencies are still researching related health risks. Although the farmers are within regulation, neighbors say the area is always windy and they fear the particles from the biosolid are infiltrating not only the air, but also the drinking water.

Related Story 8/21/16: City Sludge Fears Prompt OKC Mom To Talk To Educators

“I would ask the city to check some of the these wells out. We’ve actually got some resolutions written that we’re going to try to get Farm Bureau to pass,” said chairman of the Oklahoma County Farm Bureau, Robert Bierschenk.

Bierschenk lives across the street from a large farm that uses sludge.

“It was so horrible you couldn’t get your breath outside and a representative of the health department asked me not to go outside without a gas mask on,” he recalled.

The neighbors say it is not uncommon for the sludge to leak onto roadways and into ponds and creeks after it is applied to the farmlands, causing concern for not only people, but also wildlife.

“The money that they have saved for over 30 years, spreading this sludge out here, making people sick, needs to be utilized in a structure that can take care of this and handle this waste in a proper manner,” Carol told News 9.

Now the families are looking to lawmakers for answers, and even the state attorney general.

“He could do it without a resolution,” said Bierschenk. “I think he could probably start that action tomorrow if he is elected.”

The farmland in question is also along the route for the new turnpike expansion, which the group fears will dig up and spread the contamination further.

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