02/16/2025
Sewage sludge fertilizer laced with a class of hazardous chemicals known as PFAS is being smeared over millions of acres of farmland.
The EPA acknowledged last week that some of the forever chemicals found in sewage sludge fertilizer can pose health risks, sometimes exceeding the agency's safety thresholds by "several orders of magnitude."2
Farmers have already obtained permits to spread this fertilizer across 70 million acres -- about a fifth of all US farm land.3
Some farms have already shut down after discovering exceptionally high concentrations of PFAS in treated soil. And there are suspicions that tainted sewage sludge fertilizer may be to blame for the deaths of cattle, horses and fish on properties near treated farms.4
Urge the EPA to take the threat of PFAS seriously and phase out the use of PFAS-laden fertilizer on agricultural land.
Because PFAS can take thousands of years to break down, they have been collecting in our environment for years. Almost every American today has PFAS in their blood.6
https://act.pirg.org/go/3052?email_blast=-10362715&t=88&akid=2715%2E648634%2E2FqO0D
1. Morgan Coulson, "The Omnipresence of PFAS--and What We Can Do About Them," Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, March 28, 2024.
2. John Rumpler, "PFAS in sewage sludge puts farms and food at risk," Environment America, January 15, 2025.
3. Hiroko Tabuchi, "In a First, the E.P.A. Warns of 'Forever Chemicals' in Sludge Fertilizer," The New York Times, January 14, 2025.
4. Hiroko Tabuchi, "Something's Poisoning America's Land. Farmers Fear 'Forever Chemicals,'" The New York Times, August 31, 2024.
5. John Rumpler, "PFAS in sewage sludge puts farms and food at risk," Environment America, January 15, 2025.
6. Barbara Moran, "Our sewage often becomes fertilizer. Problem is, it's tainted with PFAS," Maine Public Radio, April 10, 2023.
7. Hiroko Tabuchi, "In a First, the E.P.A. Warns of 'Forever Chemicals' in Sludge Fertilizer," The New York Times, January 14, 2025.
These chemicals are simply too dangerous to be spreading across the land that produces our food.