{"id":6984,"date":"2024-05-30T12:28:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T17:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/?p=6984"},"modified":"2024-05-30T12:34:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T17:34:08","slug":"article-a-call-for-sludge-regulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/article-a-call-for-sludge-regulation\/","title":{"rendered":"ARTICLE: A Call for Sludge Regulation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Marina Schauffler<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eight years ago, Maine uncovered the edge of a vast agricultural problem when PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) surfaced on a third-generation dairy farm<\/a>. The toxic fluorinated compounds in the farm\u2019s water, soil, pasture grasses and milk traced back to wastewater sludge spread on fields more than a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and most state agricultural departments still promote land-spreading as a \u201cbeneficial use\u201d of sludge, despite knowing that the \u201cforever chemicals\u201d it contains pose serious health risks,\u00a0disrupting hormonal, immune and reproductive systems and increasing th<\/a>e risk of various cancers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among\u00a0more than 700 chemical compounds<\/a>\u00a0the EPA has identified in the residual wastewater sludge that\u00a0industry terms \u201cbiosolids<\/a>,\u201d PFAS are nearly universal. \u201cWhat\u2019s different about Maine is that we\u2019re actually looking for it,\u201d says Sarah Alexander, executive director of the\u00a0Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association\u00a0<\/a>(MOFGA). To date, state agencies in Maine have found more than 70 PFAS-contaminated farms, a handful of which have had to cease all food production.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Maine became the first state to ban land application of sludge and the sale of compost containing sludge. No such protections exist for the larger U.S. food supply, Alexander notes. Each year, more than half of the nation\u2019s sewage sludge is land-applied,\u00a0the EPA reports<\/a>, with 31 percent spread on agricultural lands and the balance going to settings like home gardens, landscaping, athletic fields, golf courses and parks.<\/p>\n

To force faster adoption of federal regulations governing PFAS in sludge, MOFGA announced last week its intent to join a\u00a0lawsuit against the EPA with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility<\/a>\u00a0(PEER), an environmental watchdog group that notified the EPA in February of its intent to sue. That action followed sludge contamination incidents affecting farmers in\u00a0Texas<\/a>,\u00a0South Carolina<\/a>,\u00a0Michigan<\/a>and other states.<\/p>\n

\u201cA patchwork approach across the states is not going to work,\u201d Alexander says; what\u2019s needed is a coordinated and timely response from the EPA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n

The EPA\u00a0plans to complete a risk assessment this year<\/a>\u00a0of two PFAS compounds commonly found in sludge, but Alexander says that\u2019s \u201ctoo little and way too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Clean Water Act mandates that the EPA review sewage sludge regulations every two years and address pollutants that could be harmful.\u00a0According to MOFGA<\/a>, the EPA has promulgated only nine regulations governing land application of sewage sludge. At least 12 of the PFAS found to date in sludge have clear scientific evidence demonstrating public harm,\u00a0MOFGA asserts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Evidence of risks from sludge has been accumulating for decades. A 1997 report by the\u00a0Cornell University Waste Management Institute<\/a>\u00a0urged the EPA to adopt stricter sludge regulations and \u201ctake a closer look at the contents of sewage sludges and the conditions under which they are applied.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSewage sludge is widely suspected as a major sink\u201d of PFAS, researchers\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in 2005, since the compounds adsorb to solids during wastewater treatment. Christopher Higgins, an environmental engineering professor at the Colorado School of Mines, coauthored that research and worked with colleagues on\u00a0a 2011 published study<\/a>\u00a0that found PFAS levels in soil rose proportionate to the volume of municipal sludge applied. By then, the EPA had confronted\u00a0record-high levels of PFAS on Alabama pastures<\/a>\u00a0treated with sludge that incorporated waste from a fluorochemical manufacturer.<\/p>\n

Higgins recalls trying to convince the EPA and wastewater industry associations that a multi-million-dollar research program was needed to assess the risks that PFAS in sludge might pose for groundwater, soil health and the food supply, but he says \u201cthere was no real interest in doing the research and asking the hard questions.\u201d When he presented study findings to waste industry officials, he recalls that \u201cthey wanted to stick their heads in the sand and say there is no problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

When EPA established drinking water standards this spring for some prevalent PFAS compounds, the agency acknowledged that \u201cthere is no level of exposure to these contaminants without risk of health impacts, including certain cancers<\/a>.\u201d The EPA describes PFAS as \u201can urgent public health and environmental issue<\/a>,\u201d but in MOFGA\u2019s estimation, regulation does not yet match rhetoric. \u201cWe know the risks are there,\u201d Alexander says. \u201cWe want them to take action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Widespread use and disposal of PFAS underlies the ongoing contamination of sludge, the EPA\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in a statement last year. There are no viable means presently to remove PFAS from sludge at scale or to remediate the farm soils that sludge contaminates.<\/p>\n

The plight of farmers whose lives were upended by toxic sludge convinced Maine to\u00a0lead the nation in passing a phased-in ban on PFAS<\/a>\u00a0in most products. The only viable means to manage chemicals this persistent and pernicious, legislators realized, is\u00a0to largely eliminate their use<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one can undo the historic contamination of our land,\u201d testified one Maine farmer who lost his home and business due to sludge. \u201cBut we know enough now to turn off the tap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Original Link: https:\/\/www.newsfromthestates.com\/article\/call-sludge-regulation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Marina Schauffler Eight years ago, Maine uncovered the edge of a vast agricultural problem…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-coverage"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6984"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8166,"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6984\/revisions\/8166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ariescleantech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}