Why Farmers May Be Able to Continue Fertilizing Fields With PFAS-Contaminated Sewage Sludge – Inside Climate News

Republicans are quietly moving to kill proposed regulations for PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge that is spread on farmland as fertilizer, a practice that has sickened farmers across the country, destroyed their livelihoods and contaminated food and water supplies.

The Biden administration in its final days issued a draft health risk assessment level for some PFAS in sludge that would have dramatically limited the use of the substance, also called biosolids, as fertilizer, if finalized and implemented. 

Then, in early June, a waste industry trade group met with Environmental Protection Agency leadership to discuss the assessment. In the weeks after the meeting, Republicans quietly slipped a rider into a House appropriations bill that would fund the EPA aims to derail the risk assessment process by cutting off funding. The rider also includes language that appears designed to permanently prohibit funding for the implementation of regulations for some PFAS in sludge.

Public health advocates and some Congress members are now mobilizing to kill the rider, which they say is likely illegal because it pre-empts the Clean Water Act. The attempt to kill the risk assessment is “absolutely insane,” said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA attorney who is now science director for the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility nonprofit. 

“Who knows what they’re going to do,” Bennett added. “This is the anti-science administration, and not only do they not give a whit about science, they don’t give a whit about human health.”

Sludge is the semi-solid byproduct produced when wastewater treatment plants clean sewer system waste. Its disposal is expensive because it must go into hazardous waste landfills. 

Sludge can teem with any of 90,000 manmade chemicals potentially spit into the nation’s sewers, but the EPA still allows it to be spread on cropland as “biosolid” fertilizer because it is also rich in plant nutrients. Rules require sludge to be lightly treated for pathogens, but little is done to address the chemicals, and biosolids often contain staggering levels of PFAS. 

About 60 percent of the nation’s sludge is applied to farmland, and regulators in Maine and Michigan have found PFAS in every sample they have tested, as did a 2001 federal review of the nation’s sewage sludge. 

The chemicals often contaminate farms’ groundwater and nearby surface waters at levels that public health advocates say violate the Clean Water Act. After years of outrage, and the threat of legal action, the Biden administration initiated the risk assessment for PFOA and PFOS, two common PFAS chemicals in sludge.

This is the first step in regulating the toxic substance, and, during Biden’s final days in office, it proposed advisory health guidelines of 1 part per billion (ppb) of PFOS or PFOA, meaning levels above that threshold could cause cancer or other health problems. The agency put the levels out for public comment, and likely would have finalized and published them next year.

The risk assessment, which the GOP is targeting, was based on health risks to farmers, but did not assess how the chemicals may impact the public via contaminated produce, dairy and meat. 

Still, the risk assessment level was low enough that most sludge applications would be prohibited if the rule was finalized and implemented because sludge virtually never has levels lower than 1 ppb, Bennett said. 

Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association (MOFGA), which advocates for stricter sludge regulations and assistance for farmers with contaminated farms, said the group was “very excited” about the risk assessment. 

“It’s really focused on the health risks for farmers and their neighbors, and we found it did reflect the reality of what we’ve seen in Maine,” Alexander said. Dozens of Maine farmers have contaminated fields, and though the EPA’s estimates were “conservative,” they were still protective, Alexander added. 

More risk assessment deadlines for implementation of the limits were in place for this year, but the House appropriations rider may put that on hold. 

The rider surfaced just a few weeks after a June 12 meeting between the EPA and representatives from Coalition of Recyclers of Residuals Organics by Practitioners of Sustainability (CRROPS), a trade group representing the nation’s largest biosolid producers. 

The EPA memo states that the intent of the meeting was “to listen [to CROPPS] perspectives on the EPA’s Draft Sewage Sludge Risk Assessment for [PFOA and PFOS].”

CROPPS, the memo states, wanted to “ensure validated science” was used to develop regulations, discuss the development of its own risk management strategies and ensure it wouldn’t be held liable if rules were put in place. 

In other words, “they wanted to make sure they got out of this,” Bennett said. 

The current language inserted into the bill reads, “None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to implement, administer, or enforce the draft risk assessment titled ‘‘Draft Sewage Sludge Risk Assessment for Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS)’’.

When asked if the rider was developed because of the meeting, or if information from the meeting was used to develop the rider, the EPA declined to comment. 

Laura Orlando, a waste management scientist with Just Zero, a public health group opposing the bill, said it appears the EPA can finalize the draft risk assessment but “it will not be giving any funding—from this bill or any other—to do anything with the assessment.”

Advocates also say the inclusion of “or any other Act” language suggests the rider would permanently prohibit future regulations. Attorneys and advocates opposing the rider said they had never seen language that permanently banned funding. 

“This just fits into the pattern of the Trump administration sticking its head in the sand and disregarding science, but no amount of PR, spin, propaganda and disinformation is going to make the consequences of this problem go away,” said Christy McGillivray, who until last month worked on sludge issues as executive director for the Sierra Club Michigan.

It is possible that a future Congress reverses the law, Bennett said, but that is an uncertainty. The rider language appears to pre-empt the Clean Water Act, which requires the EPA to regulate sludge, Bennett added, so it may be illegal. 

The EPA has toxicological profiles for 12 types of PFAS known to be in sludge, and the chemicals have been found to move from fields into water supplies or be taken up by crops. Those levels may be dangerous to humans, research has found, so the Clean Water Act requires the EPA to develop limits for PFAS in sludge, Bennett said. 

The full House still has yet to vote on the bill, and won’t until at least September. Alexander said. MOFGA is working with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to try to thwart the provision in the Senate. 

Orlando said Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree, ranking minority member of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, attempted to squash the “poison pill” rider during the bill’s mark up. The motion failed 31-28 along party lines.

In a statement, Pingree noted farmers in Maine “have lost their entire livelihoods and their farms.”

“Blocking the EPA from working to better understand the potential risks to human health and the environment posed by the presence of PFAS in sewage sludge makes absolutely no sense,” Pingree said. “We know that PFAS remediation is going to be immensely costly. Why wouldn’t we take steps to prevent contamination in the first place?”