Metro Woman Fights To End Sludge Dumping On Farmland

An Oklahoma City woman starts a non-profit in order to fight a problem she says is making her family and community sick.

Paula Yockel says for the last seven years she’s been doing research on the dumping of treated sewage on neighboring fields.

The practice is allowed though a federal rule, and it’s a rule that Yockel wants to see changed.

“I saw the harm to my son. I saw the harm to my husband and myself,” said Yockel. “You can’t live like that. You can’t live with the mystery of when a convoy of sewage trucks is going to show up next to your home.”

Yockel believes the waste is toxic and the federal rule doesn’t provide enough testing.

“Viruses are rampant. They’re viable in sewage,” Yockel said. “You know how many viruses we test for in our federal testing? Zero.”

Yockel started a non-profit aimed at getting the federal rule changed.

Over the last seven years, she said she paid for multiple tests of the air, soil and water. She believes the data back her concerns.

They are concerns shared by Jeff Blount who lives across the street from a field used for sludge dumping on Oklahoma City’s north east side.

“The smell is horrific,” says Blount. “I mean it’s overpowering.”

Trucks rolled onto the field two weeks ago.

“They dump the sludge out of the truck. Then they take a front loader and spread it around,” Blount describes. “Then they plow it into the ground.”

Blount watched from the window of the dream home where he no longer drinks the well water.

“After the couple of times that we’ve been here when the dumpings happen we have had respiratory issues,” says Blount.

It’s the reason Yockel went to the state capitol on Wednesday.

She says her fight isn’t with the city or the state, but she now hopes the governor will take a look at the research she dropped off at his office.