WASHINGTON — Every municipal water system is required to test drinking water for PFAS. When results in Bar Harbor, Maine revealed dangerously high PFAS levels, it led to the source being traced upstream to a farm where sludge had been spread. Testing on another Maine dairy farm where sludge had not been spread for decades revealed high PFAS levels in the organic farmer family’s corn, cattle, milk, and their blood. Their three-year-old son had troublingly high levels and their farm was shut down.
Maine has since banned land spreading and begun a program to systematically test farms. Connecticut recently became the second state to ban land spreading of biosolids. Every known test of WWTP biosolids (sewage sludge) has demonstrated the ubiquity of toxins present in sewage sludge. Despite the mounting pile of evidence, land spreading is still legal in 48 states. In many states, Right to Farm Laws are used to negate local laws banning or limiting the practice.
New York is a good example of this situation where the Commissioner of Agriculture and Markets is the sole arbiter for deciding Right to Farm protections. Over the past few decades, several towns have passed spreading bans. Each time the Commissioner has sought the expert opinion from the Department of Environmental Conservation. This is where responsibility lies for deciding what to do with solid waste. DEC is also the department that requires communities to have waste water treatment plants. It is these same WWTPs that produce the sewage sludge making DEC in charge of determining how to dispose of the sludge.
First, it is rebranded as ‘biosolids.’ Next, it is touted as a good source of plant nutrients, which it is. Then it is marketed to farmers and landowners as cheap fertilizer as landfill space is limited and expensive. Waste handlers are only too happy to charge WWTPs to haul away their sludge, minimally process without removing toxics like heavy metals, pharmaceuticals and PFAS, charge hauling to the farms who buy their sludge products, and rent farmers the equipment needed to spread this ‘safe and beneficial’ material.
It should surprise no one that DEC’s ‘expert advice’ to the Ag Commissioner is that land spreading of biosolids is a ‘safe and beneficial’ practice that should continue to be protected by the Right to Farm Law.
–Bonnie Lane Webber
[email protected]
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