Global Agriculture

EPA Report Reveals Health Impacts of Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Sewage Sludge

17 January 2024, Washington: On Tuesday, EPA released a long-awaited draft report demonstrating that toxic “forever chemicals” in sewage sludge applied to farmland can cause cancer and other diseases in people who live near farm fields where the sludge is applied, or consume tainted milk, beef or other foods from these farms.

The chemicals – per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – contaminate wastewater treatment plant sludge that for decades, at EPA’s urging, has been applied as cheap fertilizer to many millions of acres of pasture and cropland. PFAS are taken up by crops and grasses grown on contaminated land, accumulate in the meat and milk of pasture-raised livestock, and pollute the drinking water of at least 45% of Americans. Testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that nearly everyone in the U.S. has one or more PFAS in their bloodstreams.

PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” because of their resistance to breakdown, meaning they can build up in the environment and in humans.

“EPA’s report is a long-overdue first step in assessing the harms caused by dumping toxic sludge on farmland,” said Bill Freese, Science Director at Center for Food Safety (CFS). “But studying the problem isn’t enough. EPA should follow Maine’s lead and ban the disposal of PFAS-laced sludge on food-producing lands,” he added.

Municipal sewer systems channel huge amounts of PFAS-contaminated waste to wastewater treatment plants, which remove the nutrient-rich solid portion (sludge) before discharging the liquid effluent into waterways. The treatment process of most plants is not designed to remove PFAS, which concentrate in sludge at far higher levels than are found in the incoming waste stream or the treated water discharged into waterways. Millions of tons of this toxic sludge are applied to farmland, landfilled, or incinerated.

As EPA concedes, its assessment understates risks in several ways: by evaluating harm from exposure to just two of at least 23 PFAS chemicals EPA has detected in sewage sludge (see SI Table 3); assuming sludge contains far lower levels of these two PFAS than tests show it does; assessing risk from exposure to one consumable at a time (water, milk, beef, eggs, fish) rather than from combined exposure; and modeling average rather than high-end exposure conditions; among other weaknesses.

“Even EPA’s flawed assessment finds substantial risks from PFAS exposure: kidney and liver cancers, decreased birth weight, increased cholesterol, and diminished immune response that lessens vaccine effectiveness,” said Freese.

EPA is taking comments on the draft risk assessment for 60 days, until March 17th.

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