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Concerns about PFAS reaching food, water, and rural communities may deepen after the Trump administration abandoned proposed limits on contaminated sewage sludge spread on U.S. farmland, The Guardian reported.
The move also rejects Biden-era scientific work that found that even very low concentrations of some "forever chemicals" in sludge could raise cancer risks for farmers.
What happened?
Research completed less than two years ago that supported tighter oversight has been set aside as the Environmental Protection Agency drops plans to regulate PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge, or biosolids, before it is used as fertilizer on farmland, according to The Guardian.
Just before the Biden administration ended, the EPA published a draft health risk assessment covering PFOA and PFOS, two of the most widely known PFAS chemicals. The Guardian reported that the draft linked sludge concentrations above 1 part per billion to elevated cancer and other health risks for farmers working land treated with it.
Because many sludge samples are above that level, the restrictions under consideration could have greatly reduced how often the material is applied.
Rather than adopt those limits, the EPA told the public to research sludge companies themselves before using fertilizer products that may contain the chemicals. The agency has also argued that the material is not a major public threat because it is used mainly on farms and on only 1% of farmland.
Laura Dumais, an attorney with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said, "It's shocking for the EPA to take a scientific assessment and simply throw it out."
Why does it matter?
PFAS have been associated with cancer, liver damage, kidney problems, high cholesterol, birth defects, and reduced immunity. They are often called forever chemicals because, as The Guardian reported, they can remain in the environment and in human bodies for long periods.
Critics say putting sludge on cropland can spread contamination into soil, water, meat, dairy, and produce. The material is a byproduct of the sewage system that contains both human and industrial waste.
More than 100 farms in Maine have already been found to have contaminated sludge on their land, including organic farms that unknowingly grew crops in polluted soil.
A calculation cited by The Guardian estimated that more than 36 out of 1,000 children could later develop cancer if they regularly drank milk from a farm treated with sludge containing 9.4 parts per billion of PFOA. In comments to the EPA, the Southern Environmental Law Center said such estimates point to especially serious risks for children.
What's being done?
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has sued the EPA, saying the agency has failed to address PFAS in sludge under the Clean Water Act, according to The Guardian. The Southern Environmental Law Center has also continued pressing the issue, as environmental and public health advocates push back against the decision.
Jean Zhuang, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the EPA decision "puts polluters first and leaves farming families and rural communities to bear the consequences."
She also said, "This administration is tossing aside a comprehensive, science-based assessment of the dangers of PFAS and replacing it with a thin, watered-down document that minimizes real harm."
Dumais added, "It's shocking that the EPA is willing to throw all of these people under the bus and the EPA's solution here is 'do your own research — we're not going to regulate anything, so if you think it's dangerous then figure it out for yourself.'"
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