EPA Announcement of PFAS in Sludge

1/15/25

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just issued a draft risk assessment about the health impacts of PFAS chemicals in sludge, stating that PFOA and PFOS in sludge applied to farmland as fertilizer could create human health risks. The EPA release states:

“The preliminary findings of the draft risk assessment indicate that there can be human health risks exceeding EPA’s acceptable thresholds, sometimes by several orders of magnitude, for some scenarios where the farmer applied biosolids containing 1 part per billion (ppb) of PFOA or PFOS (which is near the current detection limit for these PFAS in biosolids).”

Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), said, “Unfortunately, in Maine we’re all too familiar with the risks to our health and our environment from applying sludge on farmland. While we’re glad to see EPA take this preliminary step to recognize the harmful impacts of PFOA and PFOS in sludge, we believe there’s more than enough evidence for the EPA to set limits for regulating PFAS chemicals in sludge.”

MOFGA, along with several other plaintiffs, is currently suing the EPA for failing to regulate PFAS chemicals in sludge. The EPA filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and the court is considering whether or not to hear the case.

“Under the Clean Water Act, the EPA is required to regulate toxic chemicals in wastewater sludge. With this new draft assessment on the harms of PFAS chemicals in sludge, it’s more clear than ever that the EPA has failed to do its job, and has left our farmers and rural communities vulnerable to toxic contamination from ‘forever chemicals.’ The health and environmental impacts will have consequences for generations to come,” Alexander stated.

MOFGA is currently working to pass the Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act through Congress in order to provide a safety net for farmers who find PFAS contamination on their land.

“Maine has been leading the nation on addressing PFAS contamination on farms, but we need a national approach that creates a safety net for farmers, holds polluters accountable, and sets food safety standards to ensure we all have safe and healthy food,” said Alexander.

The EPA will have a 60-day comment period for the draft risk assessment, and MOFGA encourages people to join the comment period by taking action at: actionnetwork.org/letters/epa-time-to-ban-pfas-in-sludge.

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