on friday, the Environmental Protection Agency has designated two types of “forever chemicals” as hazardous substances under the federal Superfund Act. The move will make it easier for the government to ban the manufacturers of these chemicals, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or pfasto bear the cost of clearing them from the environment.
The EPA “will focus enforcement on parties that have significantly contributed to the release of PFAS chemicals into the environment, including parties that manufactured PFAS or used PFAS in the manufacturing process, federal facilities, and other industrial parties.” the agency explained in a press release. The directive, which will take effect in 60 days, comes on the heels of An EPA rule limiting the acceptable amount of the two main types of PFAS found in the United States, PFOS and PFOA, to just 4 parts per trillion.
While the EPA’s new restrictions are groundbreaking, they only apply to a portion of the nation’s extensive PFAS contamination problem. That’s because drinking water isn’t the only way Americans are exposed to PFAS, and not all companies that spread PFAS into the environment intentionally added the chemicals to the products. In Texas, a group of farmers whose properties were contaminated with PFAS from fertilizer claims the manufacturer should have done more to warn buyers about the dangers of its products. The first-of-its-kind lawsuit illustrates how much more regulation will be needed to rid the environment — and Americans’ bodies — of perpetual chemicals.
PFAS have been around since the mid-20th century, when chemical giants DuPont and 3M started putting them in products like nonstick cookware, firefighting foam and duct tape. The chemicals, extremely effective at repelling water, quickly became ubiquitous in products used by Americans every day: pizza boxes, takeout containers, popcorn bags, waterproof mascara, rain jackets.
But the stable molecular bonds that make the chemicals so effective in these applications also make them dangerous and long-lasting. The chemicals bind to blood and tissue, where they can build up over time and contribute to a range of health issues. The chemicals are linked to testicular, kidney, and thyroid cancer; cardiovascular disease; and immune deficiencies. Over decades, like chemical companies led by 3M covered up the dangers of PFAS from federal regulators and the public, the chemicals leached into the environment and migrated into soil and drinking water supplies. They also seeped into us; 97 percent of Americans have PFAS in their blood.
PFAS is also in our feces—which is a problem because of where that waste ends up. Biosolids, the concentrated byproducts of waste treatment plants, are commonly spread on farms as fertilizer. The products are incredibly cheap — a selling point for farmers who often work with razor-thin profit margins. Some 19 billion pounds of sewage sludge was spread on agricultural land in 41 states between 2016 and 2022. The EPA estimates that 60 percent of biosolids in the US are applied to agricultural land.
There is growing evidence that biosolids teem with eternal chemicals that have traveled through people’s bodies. The EPA’s new PFAS rules do not apply to biosolidswhich means this pollution still largely flies under the radar. The EPA said it intends to conduct a first evaluation of PFAS in biosolids later this year, which may lead to new restrictions. Preliminary research has shown this the PFAS in waste sludge is absorbed by crops and in turn consumed by livestock; it has even been found in chicken eggs. Some farmers are not waiting for the federal government to act.
In February, five farmers in Johnson County, Texas, sued Synagro, a Maryland-based biosolids management company, and its Texas subsidiary. Synagro has contracts with more than 1,000 municipal wastewater plants in North America and handles millions of tons of waste every year. The company separates liquids and solids, then treats the solids to remove some toxins and pathogens. But PFAS, thanks to their strong molecular bonds, can resist conventional wastewater treatment. Synagro reuses 80 percent of the waste it treats, some of which is marketed as Synagro Granulit Fertilizer.
The lawsuit alleges Synagro falsely “markets” its fertilizer as “safe and organic.” The plaintiffs accuse the company of selling fertilizer with high levels of PFAS and failing to warn farmers about the dangers of PFAS exposure. They say an individual on a neighboring property used Synagro Granulite, and the product then came onto their farms.
Dana Ames, Johnson County’s environmental crimes investigator, opened an investigation after the plaintiffs filed a complaint with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Johnson County Constable’s Office. Ames tested soil, surface water and well water samples from the affected farms for PFAS. She found contamination ranging from 91 to 6,290 parts per trillion in soil and water samples from the plaintiffs’ properties. The province also tested tissue from two fish and two calves on these farms. The fish tested as high as 75,000 parts per trillion. The liver of one of the calves came back with an astounding 610,000 parts per trillion PFOS — about 152,000 times higher than the EPA’s new PFAS drinking water limits.
The plaintiffs voluntarily stopped selling meat, fish and other agricultural products after discovering the contamination. They are suing Synagro to recover their losses and more damage, they say, is sure to come. Synagro, the complaint states, failed to conduct adequate environmental studies and the company “knew, or reasonably should have known, of the foreseeable risks and defects of its biosolid fertilizers.”
A spokesperson for Synagro told Grist that the company denies the “unproven and novel” allegations. “EPA continues to support land application of biosolids as a valuable practice that recycles nutrients to agricultural land and has not suggested that any changes in biosolids management are necessary,” the spokesperson said, highlighting the lack of federal regulations.
Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register/Getty Images
Ames, the investigator, said that federal and state deficits are the real root of the problem. “EPA has failed the American people and our regulatory agency here in the state of Texas has failed Texans by knowingly allowing this to continue and knowingly allowing farms and people to be contaminated as well,” Ames said. Grist said.
In response to Grist’s request for comment, the EPA confirmed that recent federal PFAS restrictions do not affect the application of biosolids to agricultural land. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality declined to comment on the pending litigation in Texas.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental nonprofit that helped organize the PFAS tests on the plaintiffs’ properties in Texas, is considering filing its own lawsuit against the EPA for not enforcing limits on PFAS in biosolids have not implemented. “They have a mandatory duty to look at what pollutants are in these biosolids and set standards for them,” said the group’s director of science policy, Kyla Bennett, who is a former EPA employee. “They didn’t follow up.”
The Texas plaintiffs are not the only farmers struggling with a PFAS contamination problem due to the use of biosolids. Maine has already banned the use of biosolids as fertilizer in 2022 thereafter dozens of farms have tested positive for perpetual chemicals. A Michigan farmer who used biosolid fertilizer was forced to close his 300-acre farm after state officials found PFAS on his property. It is likely that any farmland in the US that has seen the use of biosolids products has a PFAS problem. “No one is immune to this,” Bennett said. “If people don’t know that their farms are infected, it’s because they haven’t looked.”
