In 2023, sewage treatment plants in Maryland began to make a disturbing discovery. Harmful “forever chemicals” polluted the sewage of the state, a large part of which is converted into fertilizers and spread to agricultural land.
To protect his food and drinking water, Maryland started limiting the use of fertilizer made of sewer sludge. At the same time, an important maker of sludge maker, synagro, has applied for permits to use more about the state border, on farms in Virginia.
A coalition of environmental activists, fishing groups and some farmers fight against that effort. They say that the infection is in danger of poisoning agricultural land and vulnerable waterways that feed the Potomac River.
These sewage sludge fertilizers “are not safe enough for farms in Maryland, so they come to Virginia,” said Dean Naujoks of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, which argues for clean water. “That’s wrong.”
Virginia is located on the receiving side of a pattern that pops up throughout the country, while states are participating in tackling a growing crisis of agricultural land pollution: states with weaker regulations run the risk of pouring polluted sludge.
In Virginia, Synagro, one of the leading suppliers of sludge for use as fertilizer, has searched for permission to apply more sludge in the Virginia countryside, according to local archives. Synagro is checked by a Goldman Sachs Investment Fund.
Chicken Cleverley, the most important sustainability officer at Synagro, said in a statement that the fact that the fertilizer “can contain traces of PFAS does not mean that they are infected.” He said that Synagro is constantly adding new farms to his fertilizer program and that her decision to find extra permits in Virginia was independent of the guidelines of Maryland.
Fertilizer The industry says More than 2 million dry tons of sewer sludge were used at 4.6 million hectares of agricultural land in 2018. And estimates that farmers have obtained permits to use sewer sludge on almost 70 million hectares, or about one fifth of all American agricultural land.
But a growing number of research shows that this black sludge, also known as Biosolids and made of sewage water that flows from houses and factories, can contain heavy concentrations of harmful chemicals that are called per- and polyfluoralkyl substances or PFAS. It is thought that these chemicals increase the risk of some cancers and cause birth errors and development arrears in children.
For people in regions such as the northern neck of Virginia, the “Garden of Virginia” who is the birthplace of George Washington, the threat feels double unfair: many of the Biosolids moving about state lines come from large industrial cities such as Baltimore.
The contamination, the locals fear, will rinse the agricultural land and in the rivers and creeks of the region, and the farmers and water men will hurt who live side by side.
“The water just runs away from the agricultural land in the water,” said Lee Deihl, a Waterman of the seventh generation owner of the Northern Neck Oyster Company, who maneuvered an oyster boat through a winding tributary of the Potomac. “And we get some quite large rains this time of the year.”
His worries are not unfounded. New Research published in the scientific journal Nature Discovered that PFAS is applied in sludge as fertilizer, both farms and surrounding rivers and streams can infect.
“That electricity can be the upper reaching of your drinking water, further downstream, or the chemicals can be bioaccumulating in fish,” said Diana Oviedo Vargas, a researcher at the non -party area Stroud Water Research Center, which led the federally financed study. “There is a lot that we don’t know. But these contaminants certainly reach our surface water.”
It is a difficult problem. Fertilizer made from sewer sludge has advantages. The sludge is rich in nutrients. And spreading on fields reduces the need to burn it or place it on landfills. It also reduces the use of synthetic fertilizers made from fossil fuels.
But the sludge can be contaminated with pathogens and chemicals such as PFAS, research has demonstrated. Synthetic PFAS chemicals are widely used in everyday items such as anti-stick cooking utensils and stain-resistant carpets, and are linked to A series of diseases.
The EPA regulates some pathogens and heavy metals in sludge that is used as fertilizers, but does not regulate PFAs. This year, firstWarned the EPA about the health risks of PFAs in fertilizer made of sewer sludge. The Biden Administration last year also set up The first federal PFAS -standards for drinking waterSaying that there was virtually no safe level of the chemicals.
The lack of federal rules for PFAs in sludge has left the responsible states, which leads to a mix of regulations and the distraction of polluted sludge to states with weaker regulations.
Maine forbade the use of sludge fertilizers in 2022. Since then, part of his sewer sludge has been sent from the state because local landfills cannot accommodate it, local officials have said.
Maryland temporarily stopped new permits for the use of sludge as fertilizers. The Maryland Department of the Environment also ordered PFAS tests for sewage treatment plants in the entire state. It found contamination in the waste water and the sludge, even after the treatment process, and has now adopted guidelines, albeit voluntarily, that sludge must be reported and removed with high levels of PFAs.
In Virginia, the groups penetrate the import of Maryland into the state to start the state to regulate PFAs in sludge.
But in the meantime, tens of thousands of tons sludge from Maryland are already going to Virginia, according to data from Virginia. Biosolids of 22 waste water treatment plants in Maryland have been approved for use as fertilizer in Virginia, and all 22 of those plants have reported PFAS contamination in their Biosolids, according to an analysis of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network.
In Westmoreland, a rural province in the northern neck, Synagro has reported that the sludge applies 16 waste water treatment plants in Maryland, all of facilities that have reported PFAS besfeting.
In December Synagro applied for a permit extension with which it could apply a sludge to 2,000 extra hectares of agricultural land in Westmoreland, more than doubled. After the comments from local residents had submitted a public hearing, Synagro withdrew the application, although the Virginia supervisors told that it is planning to request again.
In the neighboring Essex County, Synagro sludge tries to apply to an additional 6000 hectare, which increases the area almost a third, according to the permit application.
Mr Cleverley from Synagro said that the Biosolids that applied the company in Virginia met the PFAS guidelines of Maryland.
Irina Calos, spokeswoman for the Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality, said that her state still had to see a significant increase in the amount of Biosolids in Maryland that was applied in Virginia. She said that the State still assessed the requests of Synagro to increase his area in Virginia.
Mrs. Calos also said that Virginia was not aware of the Biosolids of Maryland with levels of PFAs higher than what was recommended in Maryland. Environmental groups have prevented it that it is difficult to verify.
Jay Apperson, a spokesperson for Maryland, said that the directives and test requirements of the State were aimed at protecting public health and at the same time supporting utilities and farmers.
Robb Hinton, a fourth -generation farmer, has grown corn for 45 years, soy and other crops on Cedar Plains Farm in Heathsville, va., Southeast of Essex and the provinces of Westmoreland. He fears that farmers in the northern neck will be misled.
“If people give you something for free, or almost free, it sounds attractive and I have no fault of a farmer trying,” he said. But they had to remember that “it is these big cities that pick their waste to us,” he said.
“I didn’t know about PFAs until I was talking to my waterse friends,” he said. “I can’t understand how Virginia is not testing for this.”
Synagro also has a direct lobbying with farmers and other locals. During a presentation in March, a Synagrovert representative, along with a researcher from Virginia Tech, distributed data from a study that seemed to show that fields that had had sludge fertilizers only a third of the PFAS levels of fields that did not, according to the presentation, that were investigated by the New York Times.
Synagro said it could not offer the full study because the company was not involved. The Virginia Tech researcher who was mentioned on the material did not respond to requests for comments.
During a meeting of Virginia’s State Water Control Board in March, Bryant Thomas, the director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Water Division, that the public had submitted 27 comments about Synagro’s plans to expand the use of sludge in Essex County. Of those comments, 26 expressed their concern about the effects of the sludge on public health and wildlife, including shellfish, he said.
The board then requested the agency to further study and report the issue.
“I think it is interesting that Maryland works on their rules and regulations, but then they send their Biosolids to us in Virginia,” said Lou Ann Jessee-Wallace, the chairman of the Water Council, in an interview. “We in Virginia will have to be sharp to ensure that we take care of our water and our citizens.”
Experts say that Maryland’s approach is a good first step. But even in Maryland, a bill that the PFAS limits would have strengthened in Biosolids failed at the last minute. And “we are worried about the patchwork of regulations between states,” says Jean Zhuang, a senior lawyer at the Southern Environmental Law Center, a non -profit group for the environment. “The federal government must play a greater role.”
President Biden was established to propose a rule that would have limited how many PFAS industrial facilities could release in their waste water. The Trump government has withdrawn that proposal, although it was recently said that it could develop its own effluent limits.
In the south, the center has already insisted on waste water treatment plants to get local factories and other industrial facilities to clean up their waste water before it reaches the treatment plant. That forces polluters to control pollution at the source, or even to completely abolish the use of PFAs, said Mrs. Zhuang.
“If waste water treatment plants were to act, industries would be those who pay for their own pollution,” she said, “and not the families and communities that depend on farms and meadows for their food, water and livelihood.”
On a recent evening, Michael Lightfoot, a Waterman, went out to bring a wire-mesh-cage from oysters that he cultivates in Jackson Creek, where he lives with his wife, Phyllis. After a career of almost three decades at the federal government, he retired in 2012 and has since been a full -time Waterman.
Mr. Lightfoot is part of an Oyster growing tree in Virginia, which is now East Coast’s largest oyster producer And among the largest producers in the nation. But his proximity to polluted farms worried, he said. “There is no farm field that does not empty in our waterways,” he said.
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