A new EPA report warns that PFAS in biosolids may contaminate water and food. In NC, past use as fertilizer threatens drinking water in the Triangle, leaving communities without clear solutions.

Mary Grace has lived in Durham for decades, but lately, she’s been gripped with fear.

“People are hurting. People are getting cancer. People are dying because of this, and who's held accountable?” she asked, her voice heavy with emotion.

Grace, who lost multiple family members to cancer, believes that chemicals like PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are an invisible threat, lurking in drinking water, soil and food. These so-called “forever chemicals” don’t break down in the environment and have been linked to cancer, thyroid disorders, and other serious health effects.

“They don’t just disappear. They’re in our food, our water, our land, our air,” she said. “We have to become activists, because corporations and the government are not addressing this.”

Her concern stems from a newly released EPA Draft Sewage Sludge Risk Assessment, which found that PFAS chemicals, particularly PFOA and PFOS, are widespread in biosolids — treated sewage sludge that is applied as fertilizer on farmland. The report suggests that biosolids could be contaminating drinking water sources, livestock and the food supply at levels that exceed safety thresholds.

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In Johnson County, Texas, ranchers are facing sickened family members and dying cattle—not from nature, but from man-made chemicals.

Tony Coleman and James Farmer, two local ranchers, noticed rancid odors from their neighbor’s property— stemming from the large, conspicuous piles of smoking fertilizer. Then when heavy rain poured down, the runoff flowed into Coleman’s and Farmer’s land and ponds. It wouldn’t be long before their stock ponds were brimming with dead, floating fish appeared. These are the same ponds their livestock drink from.

The culprit? Their neighbor used “biosolids”—a marketing term for sewage sludge produced by wastewater facilities. Sewage sludge is exactly what you would imagine. It is the by-product of everything that goes down the drain, containing various hazardous medical, household, and industrial chemicals. More bluntly, it’s human fecal matter mixed with a cocktail of thousands of other toxic substances, marketed as fertilizer to farmers far and wide. In just 2018, Texas used or disposed of 473,800 dry tons of sewage sludge.

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[These toxic chemicals enter WWTPs from stormwater runoff, ending up in sewage sludge. - Editor]

A recent study found high levels of two potentially deadly chemicals in human urine.

The study sampled the urine of 150 people and had "detection frequencies between 60% and 100%" of chemical 6PPD and 6PPD-Q, which are rubber additives commonly used in tires.

The long-term effects of 6PPD in humans hasn't been extensively studied, but what's clear to researchers is that 6PPD's source — tire-based pollution — is a big problem.

It's not easy to be exact, but studies estimate that tires create anywhere from 10-28% of the world's microplastic pollution, according to National Geographic. These particles don't just disappear — they end up in our water, our soil, and our bodies.

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By: Teagan King and Athena Fosler-Brazil - June 6, 2024 2:25 pm

Anti-sludge signs dotted the roadsides of rural Newton and McDonald Counties on Feb. 24 (Athena Fosler-Brazil/Missourian).

GRANBY — About a year after Blair Powell built his dream home in the southwest Missouri Ozarks, a noxious smell wafting from the farm next door ruined his son’s wedding reception in their backyard.

“It just was ungodly,” Powell said. “Just the worst, horrible, horrible smell. Eyes were burning, some were just nauseous, and some were sick, they had to leave.”

The source of the odor was a large waste lagoon on farmer Jerry Evans’ property, about a mile behind Powell’s house. The open-air pit contains “sludge,” as it is colloquially known, composed of animal parts and wastewater from meat and poultry processing facilities. According to neighbors, the material looks like a gray slurry, thick as a milkshake, and smells like a dead animal — which is what it is. Arkansas-based Denali Water Solutions made a deal with Evans and other farmers to house the lagoons and provided the material to area farmers as free “fertilizer.”
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Martin Phillips is one of three scientists who faced retaliation by supervisors at the Environmental Protection Agency, an inspector general’s investigation found. Credit:Jenn Ackerman, special to ProPublica

Three reports issued by the agency’s inspector general detailed personal attacks suffered by the scientists — including being called “stupid,” “piranhas” and “pot-stirrers” — and called on the EPA to take “appropriate corrective action” in response.

More than three years ago, a small group of government scientists came forward with disturbing allegations.

During President Donald Trump’s administration, they said, their managers at the Environmental Protection Agency began pressuring them to make new chemicals they were vetting seem safer than they really were. They were encouraged to delete evidence of chemicals’ harms, including cancer, miscarriage and neurological problems, from their reports — and in some cases, they said, their managers deleted the information themselves.

After the scientists pushed back, they received negative performance reviews and three of them were removed from their positions in the EPA’s division of new chemicals and reassigned to jobs elsewhere in the agency.

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[EDITOR NOTE: sewage sludge applied on farmlands is the predominant source of microplastics in the environment and crop plants are taking up microplastics.]

by Douglas Main

A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain, alarming findings that highlight a need for more urgent actions to rein in plastic pollution, researchers say.

Different studies have detected tiny shards and specks of plastics in human lungs, placentas, reproductive organs, livers, kidneys, knee and elbow joints, blood vessels, and bone marrow.

Given the research findings, “it is now imperative to declare a global emergency” to deal with plastic pollution, said Sedat Gündoğdu, who studies microplastics at Cukurova University in Turkey.

Humans are exposed to microplastics – defined as fragments smaller than five millimeters in length – and the chemicals used to make plastics from widespread plastic pollution in air, water, and even food.

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The Times dug into the widespread use of sewage sludge as fertilizer, which is sometimes heavily contaminated by “forever chemicals.”

A field in Texas where sludge-based fertilizer had been applied. Neighbors claim it led to animal deaths.Credit...Jordan Vonderhaar for The New York Times

By Hiroko Tabuchi

Aug. 31, 2024

For decades, the government has encouraged farmers across the United States to spread sewage sludge on their cropland and pastures. But now there’s a growing awareness that sludge fertilizer can contain heavy concentrations of “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, birth defects and other health risks.

This sludge is a byproduct of the nation’s wastewater-treatment plants. It’s the solid stuff that remains after city sewage is treated. But because it’s essentially concentrated waste, those toxic chemicals, known as PFAS, can become concentrated in it, too.

Here are the key findings from The New York Times’s examination of sludge fertilizer use and the consequences for farmers and the food supply.

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A new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine about the relationship between soil and human health has been issued. The report repeatedly cites the toxicity of sewage sludge (aka 'biosolids') upon soil and human health.

A video presentation and the published report can be found at The National Academies Press

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: CHRIS GRIGGS/CONSUMER REPORTS, GETTY IMAGES

A Consumer Reports investigation highlights gaps in how the U.S. tests and regulates PFAS in food

By Lauren Kirchner Data visualizations by Andy Bergmann
May 2, 2024

It was November 2016 when one of the earliest warning signs flashed, in the form of an unassuming and very unlucky dairy farm in Arundel, Maine.

That’s when Fred Stone learned that water on his farm contained high levels of PFAS. The source of the pollution was later found to be recycled sewage sludge, which he had been told for many years was a safe fertilizer. But per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—otherwise known as “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment and in humans—have been linked to cancer, immunity and endocrine problems, and infertility.

The chemicals had contaminated not just his body but his cows and their milk. The land that three generations of his family had worked on for over a century was now toxic.

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Intent to sue federal regulators charges they have failed to address dangerous levels of PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ known to be in sludge
Dairy cows rest outside the home of Fred and Laura Stone at Stoneridge Farm in Arundel, Maine. The farm was forced to shut down after sludge spread on the land was linked to high levels of PFAS in the milk. Photograph: Robert F Bukaty/AP

New legal action could put an end to the practice of spreading toxic sewage sludge on US cropland as a cheap alternative to fertilizer, and force America to rethink how it disposes of its industrial and human waste.

A notice of intent to sue federal regulators charges they have failed to address dangerous levels of PFAS “forever chemicals” known to be in virtually all sludge.

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