By Yendi Parker |
For residents of Yuma County, concerns over biosolids are nothing new.
For years, residents, growers, businesses, and local officials have raised concerns about odors, flies, dust, debris, and the sheer volume of treated sewage sludge being brought into southern Yuma County and applied to agricultural land.
And for years, Yuma kept asking for action.
On September 10, the Arizona State Land Department finally acted, finding AgTech LLC in default on one State Trust Land lease and declining to renew four others after determining that continued leasing was not in the best interest of the State Land Trust.
According to the state, AgTech applied more than 68,000 dry metric tons of treated sewage sludge in 2025 alone, with more than 97 percent originating from California utilities.
But Yuma’s fight over biosolids did not begin in 2026.
Yuma County’s own timeline shows the Board of Supervisors formally discussing nuisance and public health concerns surrounding biosolids as far back as 2016. In 2020, the Board formally opposed a proposed 6,000-acre biosolids site. Then, in 2025, the Board formally asked the Arizona State Land Department to terminate AgTech’s lease in response to continuing complaints about odors, flies, dust, and debris.
The County could not terminate the lease itself. That authority belonged to the state.
Still, another year passed.
The issue has since received considerably more attention from statewide officials, with the recent action publicly highlighted by both the Governor’s Office and Attorney General’s Office.
Then, on September 10, 2026, after years of local complaints and more than a year after Yuma County formally requested termination of the lease, the State Land Department acted. The decision came less than two months before Arizona’s general election.
For local grower Tyler Woodman, however, the story goes back much further.
“I have been ‘dealing with it’ for about 20 years,” Woodman said.
Woodman farms roughly a mile north of some of the sites and described years of smelling trucks and odors when the wind shifted, watching the number of trucks traveling through the area and hearing concerns from agricultural workers and neighbors about flies.
Eventually, he said, frustration turned into action.
“Seeing that every route that everyone has ever taken never seemed to bear fruit for whatever reason, I just simply had enough,” Woodman said.
Woodman began filing public records requests with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and Arizona State Land Department and digging through inspection reports and other records himself.
“After that, I did FOIAs for ADEQ and ASLD, and the stuff I was reading in their inspection reports troubled me deeply,” Woodman said. “So, I just kept digging.”
His questions increasingly centered on the amount of biosolids being applied, the acreage being used, and whether existing oversight was sufficient.
Woodman said one of the things that troubled him most was the feeling that responsibility for oversight was fragmented among agencies.
“Overall, I just kinda got this weird feeling that no one was really in charge and ADEQ didn’t really have the tools they needed to enforce things even if they wanted to,” he said.
The recent State Land Department decision does not settle every question surrounding biosolids in Yuma. Residents continue to call for additional environmental testing, while AgTech disputes the state’s conclusions and has said it intends to appeal the lease decision. The company maintains that it has been a responsible steward of the land and has challenged the process used by the state.
Woodman himself is also now facing a defamation lawsuit filed by AgTech over statements he made while speaking publicly about the company’s operations.
But perhaps his explanation for continuing to dig best captures why the issue has resonated with so many people in Yuma.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Woodman said. “You don’t want to be wrong about what you think is going on, but you also don’t want to find out you’re living next to a superfund site.”
Whatever comes next, one part of the history is already clear: Yuma did not suddenly discover this issue in 2026.
Residents had been complaining. Growers had been asking questions. County officials had been pressing state agencies for action. The Board of Supervisors had formally requested termination of the lease.
For years, Yuma kept making noise.
This September, the state finally listened.
Yendi Parker is an English teacher at Yuma Catholic High School. She also serves as the Western Arizona Chapter Manager for Our America and 3rd Vice President for the Arizona State Federation of Republican Women.
