FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 14, 2025
Contact:
Kyla Bennett (508) 230-9933 [email protected]
Laura Dumais (202) 792-1277 [email protected]
EPA Attempts to Sugarcoat Toxic Sewage Sludge
PFAS-Laden Biosolid Fertilizers Pose a Clear Public Health Threat
Washington, DC — Despite finding adverse human health effects from even miniscule amounts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in biosolid fertilizer applications, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) latest draft risk assessment ducks key issues and plays methodological games, according to comments filed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the plaintiffs PEER represents in a lawsuit against EPA for failing to regulate PFAS in sewage sludge.
PFAS in biosolid fertilizers have caused monumental harm to farms, dairies, and ranches across the country. Nearly 20% of U.S. agricultural land is estimated to use sludge-based fertilizers and as many as 70 million acres of farmland may be contaminated by PFAS. Because of PFAS contamination, the practice of applying sewage sludge as fertilizers is banned in Maine and Connecticut and is facing restrictions in other states.
The draft assessment purports to reflect the agency’s latest scientific understanding of the risks to human health caused by PFAS in sewage sludge used as fertilizer. In this draft assessment, EPA found that a single application of sewage sludge containing as little as 1 part per billion (ppb) of two of the most pervasive PFAS results in significant human health risks. EPA concluded that “draft risk estimates exceed the agency’s acceptable human health risk thresholds for some pasture farm, food crop farm, and reclamation scenarios.”
Yet EPA acknowledges even that finding is an understatement, because the assumptions used to make the determination are exceedingly unrealistic. For example, the draft assessment assumes that –
- No one lives on a PFAS-contaminated farm for more than ten years;
- Each farm would receive only a single application of biosolid fertilizer; and
- The farming family would consume only one PFAS-contaminated product (chicken eggs) and would not ingest any other contaminated items from the farm, such as meat, milk, plants, drinking water, or dust from soil.
“EPA must fix the glaring flaws in its draft risk assessment and finally regulate PFAS in sewage sludge. It should not take EPA decades to catch up to the consensus of the scientific community: that PFAS in biosolids are permanently poisoning our farmland and devastating the health of farming families,” stated PEER Science Policy Director Kyla Bennett, a scientist and attorney formerly with EPA.
PEER is representing ranching families from Texas, their County (Johnson County, Texas), the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, and the Potomac Riverkeeper Network in a lawsuit against EPA for failing to implement nearly 40-year-old Clean Water Act requirements to identify toxic pollutants in biosolids and adopt regulations to prevent harm to human health and the environment. This draft risk assessment will inform EPA’s potential future regulatory actions under the Clean Water Act.
“EPA’s inaction on PFAS in sludge-based fertilizers increasingly puts American food security at risk,” added PEER Staff Counsel Laura Dumais, who filed the biosolids suit. “EPA’s dereliction of its duties under the Clean Water Act puts the burden on states to protect their farms, their farming families, and our food supply.”
Significantly, EPA’s draft assessment looked at only two types of the several thousand forms of PFAS and ignored mixture effects, even though these mixtures are nearly always found in fertilizer. In addition, EPA did not examine human exposure routes through inhalation and dermal absorption. Human exposure to PFAS is associated with cancer, birth defects, and impaired functioning of the liver, kidneys, and immune system, among other adverse effects.
This exceedingly narrow focus also plagues EPA’s approach to addressing PFAS in drinking water, aerially sprayed pesticides, and the linings of plastic containers leaching into shipped foodstuffs. EPA consistently refuses to consider a comprehensive approach to PFAS.
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Examine the draft risk assessment
See the havoc wrought on agricultural lands
PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. We work with current and former federal, state, local and tribal employees.
