23
Jan
Viability of Hemp as a PFAS Remediation Tool Moves Forward, as Contamination Spreads
(Beyond Pesticides, January 23, 2025) According to reporting by Bangor Daily News, “Starting in 2025, the Mi’kmaq Nation, [Upland Grassroots], [University of Virginia], the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and Central Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District will use a four-year, $1.6 million EPA grant to continue hemp planting at [the former] Loring [Air Force Base] and testing potential ways to extract PFAS [per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances] from harvested hemp.” This grant will support an existing initiative led by members of the Mi’kmaq Nation to remediate this contaminated Superfund-designated land purchased from the U.S. government in 2009 based on interviews of the Nation’s Vice Chief Richard Silliboy.
PFAS, colloquially known as “forever chemicals,” persist in various petrochemical-based pesticides, chemicals, and other consumer products. Beyond Pesticides, in coordination with national coalitions and local communities, continues to act against the proliferation of PFAS and PFAS-contaminated products through grassroots organizing and litigation.
The use and associated public and environmental exposure to PFAS as pesticide active ingredients in pesticide products and a wide range of consumer products (including containers holding pesticides targeting mosquitoes and sewage sludge fertilizers) represent a grave threat as a result of their use in homes, emergency rooms, health care facilities, schools, and lawncare. The contamination extends to homes and gardens, food, water, and soil. PFAS compounds have been found to contaminate water and irrigation sources, and soils themselves — often through the use of fertilizers made from so-called “biosludge” (biosolids) from local waste treatment plants where PFAS active ingredients can end up. In addition, run-off from land treated with PFAS active ingredients, these treatment plants may discharge millions of gallons of wastewater into waterways, contaminating them; current waste and water treatment generally does not eliminate PFAS compounds from the treated effluent water.
Tribal Leadership on PFAS Remediation in Maine
In partnership with professionals from the University of Virginia and Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Vice Chief Silliboy and tribal member Norman Bernard began planting hemp seeds in 2022 “at the start of a research project studying whether hemp can extract PFAS from soil.” Silliboy is a co-founder of Upland Grassroots, the community-led organization leading the cleanup effort. Through this organization, hemp plants were planted on small plots and tested for PFAS at the Connecticut station.
“Of the 28 PFAS varieties identified in the soil, 10 were found in the harvested hemp plants, according to the group’s research,” says the reporting by Bangor Daily News. (See here for published study in Environmental Science: Advances.) Despite preliminary success in sequestering some forms of PFAS to hemp, the group now must contend with how to properly dispose of the contaminated plants without contributing to landfills or leading to eventual exposure in future generations. The University of Virginia, represented by chemical engineering professor Bryan Berger, PhD, is poised to release data in early 2025 as part of an ongoing scientific initiative testing a method that could remove PFAS directly from the contaminated plants. Given the $1.6 million EPA grant, community members and scientific partners alike appear optimistic at this juncture.
Decision-makers in Maine, both at the state-level and county level, have demonstrated leadership in passing legislation and programs that take seriously the existential threat of toxic petrochemical-based and PFAS-contaminated pesticides, fertilizers, and chemicals in a way that is not present in other states, nor at the federal level.
In 2022, Maine became the first state in the nation to prohibit PFAS from pesticide and fertilizer products by 2030. (See Daily News here.) In order to meet this goal, the legislature established a PFAS Fund to provide compensation for commercial farmers whose health, business, and land have been impacted by contamination through a $70 million federal-state funding pool over the next five years. (See Daily News here for more coverage.) The first application was filed earlier this year in March, and local reporting from Maine Public Radio finds that $1 million in compensation was rolled out by June 17, 2024.
PFAS Health and Environmental Threats
There are numerous environmental and public health impacts of forever chemicals, underscoring the necessity for transformational change of food and land management systems.
In a recent commentary published by scientists and lawyers in Environmental Health Perspectives, the authors speak to the existential threat that fluorinated molecules, including PFAS, pose to environmental health. “The long-term impacts of using mixtures of extremely persistent chemicals on potentially hundreds of millions of acres of US land every year is, to us, a cause for concern,” the authors write. PFAS or related compounds are included in 70% of pesticides (those with a fluorine–carbon atom bond, which is among the strongest ever created) introduced to the global market from 2015 to 2020, according to a review paper published in January 2022 in Environmental Pollution. Earlier this year, EPA announced standards for six PFAS (there are over 12,000 types and only 32 detectable in federal labs) under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), marking the first time since 1996 that EPA has regulated new chemicals with the recognition that there are no safe levels of exposure due to persistence and bioaccumulation in humans, wildlife, and ecosystems. (See Daily News here.)
According to public health and environmental advocates, this decision is a long time coming, given U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data released in a 2023 study published in Environment International indicating “that at least one PFAS could be detected in about 45% of U.S. drinking-water samples.” (See Daily News here.) Yet still, there are various limitations to existing environmental statutes as made evident in April 2024 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated EPA action, pursuant to Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), ordering Texas-based manufacturer Inhance Technologies, L.L.C. to stop producing plastic containers that leach PFAS into various products that use the company’s containers, including pesticides. The court ruled that EPA used the wrong TSCA section to pursue action, however in the court opinion authored by Circuit Judge Cory T. Wilson, it was confirmed that the agency must “weigh the costs to businesses and the overall economy before shutting down an ongoing manufacturing process,” effectively stating that financial concerns of industry usurp public wellbeing. (See Daily News here.)
The implications of failing to regulate PFAS are staggering given existing peer-reviewed science on adverse health effects.
Intrepid 2F, one of the most widely used pesticides in California as of 2023, was found to contain harmful PFAS levels based on an investigation led by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and Center for Biological Diversity. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) determined that 98% of Americans have some level of PFAS in their bloodstream, with studies reporting PFAS compounds are detectable in infants, children, and pregnant women. (See Daily News here.) A 2022 study published in Environmental Science and Technology finds PFAS regularly contaminates the hydrological ecosystem, leading to rainwater absorption of PFAS chemicals. (See Daily News here.)
Prenatal exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, including PFAS, may increase liver injury and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) risk for child patients, based on peer-reviewed literature published in Environmental Health and led by an international team of researchers from various medical institutions, including Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Columbia University. (See Daily News here.) Prenatal exposure to forever chemicals can also increase cardiometabolic risk (aka the risk of heart diseases and metabolic disorders) in adolescence and later in life, according to a Brown University-led study published in Environment International (2021). (See Daily News here.)
For more coverage and analysis of science and policy solutions, see the dedicated Daily News section on PFAS.
Call to Action
PFAS has been found in a vast array of products, including containers holding pesticides targeting mosquitoes (See Daily News here) and sewage sludge fertilizers (See Daily News here.). While communities across the nation brace for a significant drop off in federal engagement on PFAS, pesticides, and chemical harms, there are various opportunities for engagement, led by scientists, farmers, health professionals, and advocates dedicated to protecting public health and the environment.
In June 2024, PEER filed a lawsuit against the EPA on behalf of a group of ranchers and farmers in Texas harmed by biosolids contaminated with PFAS. (See Daily News here.) This lawsuit stands on the precedent set by a 2023 settlement in which DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva were ordered to pay $1.185 billion dollars to local communities across the U.S. to cover the cost of PFAS remediation and monitoring for their public drinking water systems. (See Daily News here.)
Beyond Pesticides, represented by Richman Law & Policy, filed suit against The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company and GreenTechnologies, LLC for allegedly misleading consumers on the hazardous nature of their fertilizer products, which contain PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge. The complaint cites test results showing PFAS residues in the companies’ fertilizers and numerous scientific studies on the adverse effects of PFAS to public health, wildlife, and pollinators. (See Daily News here and associated press release here.)
There are numerous actions that you can take if you are concerned about the threat of PFAS. In 2024, the Center for Food Safety, on behalf of twelve other petitioners (including environmental, farmer, and farmworker groups), filed a petition to EPA telling the agency to prevent PFAS contamination through pesticides through five key actions. See here to take action and learn more.
See here to tell Congress to pass bipartisan bills (Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act and the Healthy H2O Act) to protect farmers and rural communities from PFAS contamination in their drinking water and soil. See here for PFAS prohibition bill introduced in Maryland (SB 345) based on last year’s unsuccessful push. (See here for previous Action of the Week.)
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Source: Bangor Daily News
