For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday warned that “permanent chemicals” found in sewage sludge used as fertilizer could endanger human health.
In a comprehensive study the agency said that, while the common food supply is not threatened, the risk from contaminated fertilizers in some cases may exceed the EPA’s safety limits “sometimes by several orders of magnitude.”
A growing body of research has shown that mud can be contaminated with man-made chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are widely used in everyday items such as stainless cookware and cutlery and stain-resistant carpets. The chemicals, linked to a host of diseases including an increased risk of cancer, do not degrade in the environment, and, when sewage sludge is used as fertilizer on farms, it can contaminate soil, groundwater, crops and livestock.
Last year, the New York Times reported that 3M, which has been producing PFAS for decades, discovered in the early 2000s that the chemicals were turning up in sludge samples from municipal wastewater plants across the country. In 2003, 3M reported their findings to the EPA.
The EPA has for decades promoted the use of sludge from treated wastewater as an inexpensive fertilizer with no restrictions on how much PFAS it can contain. But the agency’s new draft risk assessment sets a possible new course. Once completed, it would mark what would be the first step in controlling PFAS in manure, which the industry calls biosolids. The agency currently regulates certain heavy metals and bacteria in sewage sludge used as fertilizer, but not PFAS.
The Biden administration has tackled PFAS contamination elsewhere, placing limits on PFAS in drinking water for the first time and designating two types of PFAS as hazardous under the state’s Superfund cleanup law. Those rules came after the agency said by 2023 there is no safe level of exposure to those two PFASs.
The EPA’s new test “provides important information to help inform future actions by federal and state agencies,” as well as wastewater treatment plants and farmers, “to protect people from PFAS exposure,” said Jane Nishida, acting director of the EPA, in a statement. .
It is unclear what other steps the Trump administration might take. President-elect Trump has had an aversion to regulation. However, he spoke of a campaign to “get harmful chemicals out of our environment,” and concerns about PFAS contamination in fertilizers have reached some deep red states.
The EPA’s risk study comes as farmers across the country are finding PFAS in their soil.
In Maine, which is the first and only state to systematically test its farm for PFAS, dozens of dairy farms have been found to be contaminated. In Texas, a group of ranchers sued a sludge fertilizer supplier last year after a neighboring farm used the fertilizer on its fields. County investigators have found several types of PFAS in ranchers’ soil, water, crops and livestock, and ranchers have since sued the EPA, accusing the agency of failing to regulate PFAS in biosolids. In Michigan, state officials closed a farm where tests found high concentrations in the soil and in cattle grazing on the land.
The EPA said its analysis does not suggest that common foods are at risk. Sewage sludge is used on less than 1 percent of arable land annually, a figure roughly consistent with industry data. Also, not all farms where manure was applied could pose a risk.
However, studies have found that, because PFAS is so persistent in the environment, contaminated sludge used years or decades ago can continue to be a source of contamination. More than 2 million dry tons were used on 4.6 million acres of farms in 2018, according to the biosolids industry. Farmers have received permits to use sewage on nearly 70 million acres, or about one-fifth of all U.S. farmland, the industry said.
Christopher Higgins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines who has researched biosolids, said it is noteworthy that the EPA has concluded that sludge fertilizer concentrations pose risks at very low levels.
Historically, he said, sludge has been used at concentrations higher than the levels now considered dangerous by the EPA.
The EPA has not changed its policy on promoting sludge fertilizers, which have advantages and disadvantages. It is rich in nutrients, and spreading it on fields reduces the need to burn it or put it in landfills, which can have other environmental costs. Using sludge fertilizer also reduces the use of synthetic fertilizers based on fossil fuels.
The agency said farmers who may be concerned about their use of sewage sludge should contact local health officials, test their drinking water as a first step, and consider switching to another fertilizer.
The EPA said, on farms that have used contaminated sludge, the greatest human risks include drinking milk from cows raised on contaminated farms, drinking contaminated water, eating eggs from pasture-raised chickens or beef raised on contaminated land, or eating fish from runoff-contaminated lakes and ponds.
The general public, who may have bought milk from a store that buys its produce from many farms, was at low risk, the agency said. For testing, the EPA focused on two commonly found types of permanent chemicals, called PFOA and PFOS, although many others exist.
The Food and Drug Administration does not set limits on PFAS levels in food. As of 2019, however, the agency has tested nearly 1,300 samples and said most did not contain the types of PFAS the agency can test for.
Some public health experts and advocacy groups have questioned the testing method, and the agency itself says that “PFAS exposure in food is an emerging area of science and there is still much we don’t know.” Last year, Consumer Reports said it found PFAS in some milk, including organic products. Packaging is another source of PFAS in food.
Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an advocacy group that works with Texas ranchers, said the EPA’s test is a good first step, but noted that the agency is only looking at two types of PFAS, and even more. they were found in farms. “Because we don’t fully know how they interact, and how they affect people’s health, I think the EPA needs to do more,” she said.
The National Association of Clean Water Agencies, which represents wastewater treatment facilities across the country, said the results confirm that sludge fertilizer is not a risk to the public’s food supply. Sludge suppliers argued that they should not be held liable for PFAS contamination, saying the chemicals were transferred to them.
“Ultimately, the manufacturers of these chemicals must bear the responsibility and cost of removing these chemicals” from products and the environment, said Adam Krantz, the group’s chief executive.
In the absence of government action, states have started taking their own steps. Maine banned the use of sewage sludge on agricultural fields by 2022 and remains the only state to do so. In December, a Texas lawmaker introduced a bill that would limit the levels of certain types of PFAS in sewage sludge used on farms. Oklahoma lawmakers have also introduced a bill that would stop the use of sludge on farms.
A total ban on the use of sludge as a fertilizer can bring its own problems. The sewage sludge still needs a place to go. Since Maine’s ban, some wastewater treatment plants say they have been forced to ship sewage sludge out of state.
Environmentalists say the key is to limit the amount of PFAS that ends up in wastewater and sewage in the first place. That could come from banning the use of PFAS in everyday products, or requiring manufacturers to treat wastewater before sending it to municipal wastewater treatment plants.
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