Meanwhile, another lawsuit led by the ranchers is challenging the EPA’s inaction on preventing PFAS contamination in fertilizers and added Johnson County, as well as the environmental groups Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, as co-plaintiffs.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit focusing on potential environmental wrongdoings by public officials and agencies, represents the plaintiffs.
“Farmers across the country count on the EPA to ensure that sewage sludge that gets applied on land as fertilizer is safe,” stated PEER staff counsel Laura Dumais in a MOFGA press release.
The “EPA has ample information about the dangers of PFAS in sewage sludge and should have regulated it long ago, as the Clean Water Act requires,” she added.