For years, farmers have been encouraged to use biosolids as a source of fertilizer. Biosolids are the solid material leftover from wastewater treatment – everything that flushed down your toilet or went down the drain rendered biologically safe to apply to fields as fertilizer. However, over the years we have learned that waste isn’t the only thing that is flushed down the drain – it is also filled with other contaminants including PFAS.
PFAS is a group of “forever chemicals” that are linked with numerous negative health impacts including cancer, immune system damage, liver toxicity and numerous others. PFAS enters wastewater through consumer products and manufacturing, and the wastewater treatment process does nothing to filter it out. Lurking in biosolids on farm fields, the PFAS can run off into our streams and waterways or contaminate the crops and animals grown on the land. They are called “forever chemicals” because they contaminate and accumulate wherever they are left whether that is, land, plants or animals. Once they are there, they will stay indefinitely.
Around the country farmers have been left with the price of contamination. From California to Maine farmers are facing the reality of their land being saturated with PFAS, and in some cases the possibility of losing the ability to work their land at all do to the levels of contamination.
Senator Love has a bill to test biosolids for PFAS before they are applied and prevent the application of biosolids exceeding a threshold. This is an important first step to reduce the amount of PFAS in biosolids we are spreading across the state.