The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

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Re: PFAS...beware if you live in Maine

‘Forever chemicals’ upended a Maine farm — and point to larger problem
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/04/11/pfas-forever-chemicals-maine-farm/

State wildlife officials had detected high levels of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances in deer killed by hunters in the town of Fairfield, 20 miles west. PFAS — commonly known as “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment once present — can be found in items such as cookware, carpets, pizza boxes and paper plates, and the stubborn chemicals have been linked to illnesses, including several types of cancer.

The PFAS levels in the deer in Maine were high enough for an official state warning. People were advised not to eat venison from deer killed near Fairfield. Several farms there had been fertilized in the 1990s with municipal or industrial sludge — essentially, treated sewage — that contained an unknown amount of PFAS. The deer had ingested it over time and should now be avoided, the state announced.

The problem, however, was far bigger than the state indicated at the time. In the 1990s, farms across Maine had been fertilized with the same sort of sludge that had poisoned the deer in Fairfield — and Songbird Farm’s concerned customer wanted Nordell and Davis to know that their land was on the list. According to a state map easily found online, but not shown to the couple before, the sludge was probably in their fields, too.

Songbird Farm tested positive for PFAS in its soil and spinach, but especially its water. The water tests revealed levels of PFAS that were 400 times higher than Maine’s state guideline.. Nordell and Davis immediately informed customers that they were suspending production at the farm while they tried to learn more — or at least until the state could install a filtration system to mitigate the problem. Then they ordered two blood tests. They couple wanted to know the amount of PFAS in their own bodies, and the results made clear just how pervasive the chemicals were: They had PFAS levels 250 times greater than the average American, higher even than some industrial workers.

Using maps, property records and information the state has posted online, the couple has tracked the problem at their farm back to May 1992, when a pair of dairy farmers, Amy and Russell Barden — two owners before them and long since gone — agreed to have 4,600 cubic yards of sludge spread on their fields from the Kennebec Sanitary Treatment District, a district that includes a large manufacturer that in the 1990s advertised itself as “the worldwide leader in molded fiber packaging” — including paper plates.

Meanwhile, in Unity, Nordell thinks about the decision all the time, and other farmers in Maine are starting to think about it, too. At least one other organic farmer in nearby Albion, eight miles from Unity, has suspended operations in recent weeks after discovering high levels of PFAS in her well water — and her farm, she pointed out, wasn’t even in a sludge field. It was due north of one.