EPA Weighs N.C. Environmental Harms From Sewage Sludge Used as Fertilizer

By Lisa Sorg | Inside Climate News | April 16, 2025

Read the full article by Lisa Sorg (Inside Climate News)

"Perhaps it was rain dripping through one of the many holes in the roof that condensed the ammonium nitrate into a potentially explosive cake. 

Or maybe it was an electrical short, like the one that had occurred a month earlier, igniting a pile of fertilizer.

Regardless of the cause, on the evening of Jan. 31, 2022, the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant caught fire.

For the first two hours of a week-long siege, Winston-Salem firefighters inundated the plant with more than a half million gallons of water as they furiously tried to prevent 600 tons of ammonium nitrate—stored in wooden buildings and a rail car near a residential area—from exploding."

Topics:

• ChemicalsPFAS
• SourcesSewage treatment plants
• Health
• Measurement Techniques
• Monitoring Data
• PFAS Uses