Opponents of land applications of soil amendments meet in Wrens

Around 85 people attended a recent meeting in Wrens to discuss what they consider to be the land application of industrial waste and some local farmers call free fertilizer.

The meeting was led by Tonya Bonitatibus, executive director of the Savannah Riverkeeper. She said that her goals for the meeting were to discuss how the state defines soil amendments, review a timeline of how and where they have been applied in the past, identify current locations of sites that are currently receiving these amendments and to discuss what citizens concerned about this practice can do moving forward. The Riverkeeper also collected citizen impact statements from residents who live near the sites where these products have been applied.

Angela Brown Walden, a Jefferson County resident who has been vocally opposed to the applications, opened the meeting.

“I’m here because on July 13 of this year the dumping of this waste on agricultural land came to the front door of my family farm in Avera and it stayed for 10 weeks,” Walden said.

Since then, she, her family and a number of community members who have complained primarily about the smell and swarms of flies they say accompany the application of these amendments, have been organizing, researching, protesting this practice and calling for government assistance in stopping it.

Since July 13 there have been five locations throughout the northern end of Jefferson County and two in Glascock County that have begun to receive these soil amendments. In September, Walden and a group of other area citizens appeared before the Jefferson County commission where they complained that the rancid smell, flocks of vultures descending on the fields and a plague of flies from some of these application sites is disrupting their homes and businesses.

“Our fight is not against farmers or the land owners,” Walden said. “My family is a farming family. But these farmers and these land owners are being persuaded that this waste is fertilizer and that its not harmful to humans, communities, livestock or our environment. Our fight is against the Department of Agriculture and the politicians who have turned this into a business."

Bonitatibus told the group that the Georgia Soil Amendment Act was originally passed in 1976 and that it requires the companies requesting permits to produce these amendments to provide a trademarked name for the product, a statement of the product’s benefit, concentration of active and inert ingredients, recommended directions for use, net weight per volume and the name and address of the registrant.

In July the Georgia Department of Agriculture announced that it was going to undergo rulemaking to help clarify the 1976 law. Jefferson County was among dozens of county commissions, citizens and other agencies that sent the overseeing agency requests asking for tighter regulations.

“Another big question we have here is do we just have a couple of bad actor companies that are participating in what is an operating procedure or is this just a bad program across the board,” Bonitatibus said during the meeting. “I do think that is still a looming question.”

Bonitatibus and the county commission have asked the Department of Agriculture to give local authorities, such as a county code enforcement agent, the power to follow up on complaints, test what is coming off the trucks on the application sites and shut down those who do not follow regulated guidelines.

Jefferson County Commissioner Wayne Davis said that his biggest concern involves what is coming off the trucks.

“You can say anything you want to until you go out there and start pulling samples,” he said.

Commission Chair Mitchell McGraw said that he has received numerous calls complaining about the impact the applications have on neighboring properties and added that he has visited some of the local application sites.

“It’s a huge problem,” McGraw said. “You might not think it’s a problem if you don’t live around it, but if you experience it like Mrs. Walden and her family, then I promise, it’s terrible. We hope the Ag Commission along with our elected officials will move fast on this.”

Wilkes County Commissioner Sam Moore said that he has fought similar soil amendment applications in his county for more than 10 years.

“They were injecting it in the ground but they were doing it so much the ground wouldn’t take it,” Moore said. “It was just sitting on top of the ground.”

A number of citizens offered suggestions and asked questions before Lynn Prescott Tyner, of Wrens, stood up.

Tyner said that her family, which she said has farmed this area for generations, is currently taking a soil amendment and complained about the treatment local farmers have received online from Walden and others.

Tyner said that opponents of the practice had posted the name of her 80-year-old aunt and the address of her farm on social media and accused her of dumping toxic waste. Since then, Tyner said that protestors have driven up to her aunt’s farm and screamed obscenities. Her aunt, Tyner said, missed a family-member's funeral because she is afraid to leave her home.

“I am 100 percent against anything that is going to hurt my family or anybody else in this room,” Tyner said. “But I think before anybody in this room goes posting on social media these farmers’ names and addresses, they need to know what they are talking about.”

Tyner said she has soil reports and other documents from her aunt’s farm, and other farms as well, showing the chemical composition of what is being applied.

“I understand that there are people out there putting poisonous stuff in our lands and our waters, but don’t go accusing them of doing it until you know they are doing it. That’s not right,” Tyner said.

After the meeting Tyner and her cousin, Al Gunn, who helps manage the property Tyner referenced, said that the soil amendment being applied to their land is coming from a Purina cat food plant in Hartwell.

“They wash the vats down and that is used for fertilizer,” Tyner said. “My aunt’s cows were in the pasture while it was being sprayed. They were just flicking their tails. No vultures in the sky.”

Bonitatibus said that several sites where these amendments are being applied were added to her map during the meeting. The Riverkeeper is particularly concerned about any potential solvents or detergents that may be used to wash out the vats in situations like that described by Tyner.

“There is a strong history of industrial waste being put into sludge and causing devastating results,” Bonitatibus said.

With the position of Georgia state agriculture commissioner coming up next month and state legislature not planning to meet until January, the riverkeeper and others said they do not expect any changes to be implemented to the program in the next few weeks. What Bonitatibus did suggest is that anyone concerned about them get their questions regarding this process before all of the state legislators they can as soon as possible.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Opponents of land applications of soil amendments meet in Wrens