The Farm Bill Must Support Farmers Affected by PFAS Contaminated Sewage Sludge

Soon after Stone reported the contamination to his milk shipper—additional tests found high levels of PFAS in Stoneridge’s milk, hay and cow manure—his farm was shut down. In the years since, other vegetable and dairy farmers have been alerted to PFAS in their land, water and bodies, causing them to pause production or cease altogether.

Since the 1980s, federal and state governments have been encouraging farmers to spread residue from wastewater facilities—known as sludge—on their fields, claiming that it is a safe source of fertilizer for their crops. Governments want a cheap way of disposing the waste from public wastewater treatment plants that treat industrial and residential waste. Once the wastewater is treated, and returned to the environment, the PFAS contaminated sludge remains.

PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals” because of their nearly indestructible chemical bonds, are linked to many health issues, including decreased fertility, developmental delays in children, and increased risk of prostate, kidney, pancreatic, bladder and testicular cancers. In April, the Environmental Protection Agency maintained that “there is no level of exposure to these contaminants without risk of health impacts, including certain cancers.”

Of the 5.2 million tons of sludge produced annually in the United States, over half is spread on agricultural land or forests as a source of fertility. In Maine, this sludge almost always contains PFAS. In 2019, when the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) finished testing compost products produced from sludge, 89% of the samples exceeded Maine’s screening levels for PFAS. Over a thousand sites have been identified as having been spread with sludge in Maine in the last several decades, and the DEP is in the process of evaluating the contamination levels at these sites.

More than 60 farms have been found to be impacted by PFAS contamination in Maine, but our state has succeeded in keeping the majority of those farms in business. That’s because of the PFAS Emergency Relief Fund, jointly run by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), where I serve as Public Policy Organizer, and Maine Farmland Trust (MFT), as well as the PFAS Support Fund run by the state Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.

In 2022, as a member of the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee in the Maine House of Representatives, I sponsored a bill that completely banned the land application of sludge in Maine, making it the first state in the nation to do so. This was a vital piece of our strategy to turn off the tap on PFAS entering our food, land and water. The agricultural community led by MOFGA, MFT and Defend Our Health, a Maine based nonprofit working to eliminate toxins from our food and environment, knew that we could not continue to allow these chemicals to pollute our fields when we saw what it was doing to our farmers and their businesses.

As one affected farmer, Adam Nordell, put it in his testimony in support of the bill:

The growth of our family and business have been inextricably linked with this patch of ground … we learned from one of our customers that she had spotted our land on DEP’s map of licensed sludge application sites. We were terrified. We hired a private soil scientist to test our well water, soil and vegetable plant tissue for PFAS chemicals … all three samples came back positive for a combination of the 6 PFAS chemicals regulated by the state of Maine. Our well water reads 400 times over the State’s safety threshold. A localized soil sample read nearly 100 times over the state’s screening standard … We have suspended our sales while we wait for the results. We struggle to see a path forward for our farmland, our business and for our family. Unfortunately, we are not alone. There are going to be more farms and rural Maine residents affected by this … No one can undo the historic contamination of our land. But we know enough now to turn off the tap.

Maine went further. In addition to eliminating the spreading of contaminated sludge on our fields, we went back to the source of the PFAS in the daily products that we use in our homes. We banned the use of PFAS in products from dental floss, ski wax, cosmetics and fabric treatments. As long as corporations are pumping these chemicals into our bodies and our waste treatment systems, they will continue to return to our food system.

Across the country, corporations are making money by disposing of sludge on farmers’ fields. In Maine, they actively worked against our bill to eliminate the land application of sludge because it would hit their bottom line. These vested interests will continue to oppose us because of the hundreds of millions they profit off polluting.

The practice of applying sludge to farmland has been promoted by state and federal agencies for decades and it is still occurring in every state but Maine (Connecticut’s new PFAS law bans PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge starting October 1). According to the New York Times, as much as 70 million acres of agricultural land has been permitted for sludge spreading in the U.S., or about one-fifth of all U.S. agricultural land.

The scale of the problem and the pervasiveness of PFAS in our environment and food system means that our farmers—especially small-scale and family farms—cannot bear this burden alone. The government must step in to support our farmers with financial and other resources in the face of this sludge tsunami. Farmers are not the source of this contaminant, but they are undoubtedly on the hook for the cleanup unless legislation is passed. While States Attorneys General, wastewater treatment systems, and farmers across the country are suing PFAS manufacturers like 3M and Chemours to hold them accountable for the contamination caused by their products, we are also calling on state and federal governments to support farmers while those cases wind their way through the courts.

When farmers speak, the country listens. Just as they work hard every day to produce healthy, quality food for the public, we need our farmers to advocate for their eaters, and we all must support getting PFAS out of our food system to ensure we have clean food. At MOFGA, we are asking farmers and eaters to send letters to their elected representatives to support farmers now by cosponsoring the Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act.

Just as MOFGA, MFT and Maine’s state government have banded together to raise funds to support farmers affected by PFAS contamination, the federal government must do the same. Sen. Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Pingree (D-Maine) have each sponsored legislation in their respective bodies titled the Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act. This bill would create a fund on the federal level to support farmers across the country so they can pivot their production methods when they are confronted with contamination on their farm.

In Maine, we help farmers with income replacement, technical assistance, infrastructure costs and health monitoring. This has led to tremendous success in keeping our farmers in business by offering alternative management strategies, water filtration or creating new markets. When farmers have this safety net, they will feel confident coming forward when they find out about the contamination on their farms, which in turn keeps our entire food economy safe and secure. The work of protecting our farms and farmland must be led by our farmers, for the health of all eaters and our environment.

Farmers are accustomed to regulation coming from the federal government without having the necessary support to navigate it. In this fight for our health, our first step must be supporting our affected farmers. If we begin with regulation without the necessary assistance, farmers will simply face an additional burden on their livelihoods that will hurt their communities and homes.

The approach of offering financial and technical assistance first is vital to the success of the effort to protect our rural communities, and it is why farmers need to come forward in this fight. If those 70 million acres of potentially contaminated farmland are slowly discovered and farmers are left to cope with the devastation on their own, our rural communities and entire agricultural industry will be faced with the hollowing out of vital agricultural infrastructure. The first step must be passing the Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act, and showing real support for our agricultural economy and the farmers who dependent on it.

Bill Pluecker

Bill Pluecker has been farming commercially since 2005. Bill is the Public Policy Organizer for Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), where he works to engage the community to take action in support of clean soil and water, with an emphasis on addressing PFAS contamination of farmland and building awareness and advocacy on this topic across the country. Bill has served in the Maine Legislature since 2018. He represents House District 44 (the towns of Hope, Union and Warren) and serves as House Chair of the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee. He currently runs Begin Again Farm, a small vegetable operation selling primarily wholesale to local groceries and the Mainers Feeding Mainers program.