That challenge has led the waste industry to push the federal government to recognize their facilities as “passive receivers” of the contamination, which would allow them to avoid responsibility for cleaning up PFAS contamination.

source reduction efforts upstream of the water treatment facilities to reduce concentrations, successfully reducing PFOS contamination by 85% or more at four of the facilities by 2022. Even so, one other facility that successfully reduced its emissions by 54%

In 2017, PFAS contamination in fish led Kammer and her colleagues to a chrome plating facility that had been discharging a large amount of the chemicals into a river. That discovery led to a statewide investigation, following which Michigan halted the land application of biosolids from six wastewater treatment plants due to high concentrations of PFOS.

Executive Director Janine Burke-Wells said total bans short-circuit a system that has been in place for decades. She also said that reaching zero levels of PFAS in biosolids is unrealistic at a time when the chemicals are seemingly being found everywhere.

NEBRA

It’s just that we’re looking for it,” Woodbury said. “As soon as other states start looking and doing testing, they’re going to find the same thing that Maine has: that there’s contaminated farmland, that they need to deal with it and it’s going to cost a lot of money.”

“We live every day with the odors and fumes from the landfill,”

noted in 2022 testimony that if all of the composted or land-applied sludge in Maine in 2020 were instead sent to Juniper Ridge, it would have constituted roughly 2% of the waste accepted there. The landfill already accepted 64,443 tons of sludge in 2020, far more than was composted in the state, according to DEP data cited in Nichols’ testimony.

Maine’s dwindling capacity

Juniper Ridge, which received about 90% of the state’s biosolids in 2022, was expected to fill its remaining permitted capacity by 2028.

A report submitted to Maine DEP last December painted a stark picture of the state’s capacity to dispose of or remediate contaminated biosolids.

Within days, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection identified an emergency solution, allowing biosolids from wastewater treatment plants to be shipped up to Canada at significant expense. The legislature also passed an emergency bill, LD 718, later that year. It allowed landfill operators to import out-of-state C&D waste as a bulking material safely landfill the biosolids through July 1, 2025.

“Bangor has never once gotten a phone call saying, ‘We can’t pick up your biosolids,’” Smith said. “That was a very eye-opening moment. That had never happened before, and it was happening throughout the entire state.”

EPA to force regulation of PFAS in biosolids.

Maine’s ban, LD 1911, was described at the time as the first state law in

a growing number of states have begun considering their own bans on land application or more stringent PFAS

PFOA and PFOS, but not others.

“The presence of a pollutant in sewage sludge alone does not necessarily mean that there is risk to [human health] or the environment from its use or disposal,” Dominique Joseph, a senior communications advisor with EPA, said in an emailed statement.

The 26 deer sampled tested up to 54.3 parts per billion (ppb) for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, one of the most persistent forever chemicals, averaging 20.2 ppb. The 29 turkeys sampled a year later tested up to 139 ppb, averaging 24.07 ppb.

Studies of people exposed to PFAS have found links to increased cholesterol levels, decreased response to vaccines, liver inflammation, increased risk of high blood pressure or pre-eclampsia in pregnant women, and increased risk of certain cancers.

Maine banned sludge spreading in 2021, becoming effective in 2022.

blood and organs of game, fish, livestock, and humans.

harmful chemicals in grass and water near farms that used sewage sludge

Fall wild turkey season began in September, depending on the area, and ends Nov. 7.

”fluorinated substances that contain at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon atom (without any H/Cl/Br/I atom attached to it), i.e., with a few noted exceptions (represented by a carbon atom instead having H/Cl/Br/I atoms attached), any chemical with at least a perfluorinated methyl group (−CF3) or a perfluorinated methylene group (−CF2−) is a PFAS” [51].

PFAS substances represent a serious concern for human health potentially inducing alterations in the development, lipid metabolism and endocrine system, cancerogenicity, immunotoxicity, hepatotoxicity and reprotoxicity.

List of typical PFAS uses in industrial and consumers products.

The exceptional strength of the C-F bond confers very high thermal and chemical stability

PFAS have been detected in the air [33,34], groundwater [35,36], freshwater [17,37], marinewater [38,39], drinking water [40,41] and soil [42,43,44]

Common features of PFAS are represented by their chemical stability which causes environmental persistence [10], their high mobility which confers them a long-range transport potential [11] causing their pervasive spreading even into remote regions (e.g., the Arctic’s or Antarctic’s)

Of note, while the PFAS family has rapidly expanded into an impressive number of more than 4700 different substances including both the “legacy PFAS” (i.e., PFOS, PFOA) and the “emerging PFAS” (e.g., GenX)

evidence indicate that these compounds represent also a serious concern for both wildlife and human health as a result of their ubiquitous distribution, their extreme persistence and their bioaccumulative potential

MNPs accumulate within and affect the proper functioning of the placenta – the vital organ of pregnancy responsible for all maternal-fetal exchange

Observations in both maternal mice and rats exposed to PS-NPs during gestation, ranging in size from 20 to 500nm, demonstrated the presence of these particles in fetal liver (96, 108, 109), heart (96, 109), brain (99, 108, 109), lung (108, 109), and kidney (109). Interestingly, a similar exposure using PE-MPs (10-45µm) resulted in MP accumulation exclusively in fetal kidneys (110). In humans, MNPs have been measured in fetal meconium (36, 46, 47) and amniotic fluid (102), and using an ex vivo human placenta perfusion model, a size dependent transfer of MNPs from the maternal to fetal circulation has been described (111, 112).

However, there remain considerable gaps in understanding that prevent a thorough assessment of whether current MNP exposures contribute to significant human infertility or disease.

In rodent models, exposure to phthalates and BPA can induce alterations in DNA methylation patterns (70–73), histone modifications (73, 74), and non-coding RNA expression within the germline. These changes can disrupt normal epigenetic programming during critical windows of spermatogenesis, leading to impaired sperm development, reduced sperm quality, and compromised fertility

elated to cellular growth and development, coupled to poor sperm quality and fertility outcomes

distinct changes in reproductive hormone signalling are observed, with reductions in the circulating concentrations of estradiol (E2) and anti-mullerian hormone (AMH), and increased concentrations of LH, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and testosterone

in rodent models leads to reduced sperm quantity and quality (51–54, 57, 59, 61, 64, 65) in addition to reduced testicular androgen production (57) and circulating levels of testosterone

MNPs have been found in a diverse range of biological samples, including blood (30, 31), urine (32), sputum (33), feces (34, 35), and breast milk (36, 37). Further, MNP accumulation has been identified in numerous organ systems including lung (38–43), colon and spleen (44)

MNPs can cross the physiological barriers of the lungs, gut, and skin

There is concern that chemicals contained within MNPs, or those absorbed to their surface, can be carried into the human body and released into various tissue beds (24). In this way, MNPs act as a vehicle for toxic exposure to a number of xenobiotics, which may bypass typical physiological defences such as drug-metabolizing enzymes in the gut and liver and induce direct effects to the cells/tissues surrounding the internalized MNPs (25).

A recent review estimated that over 10,000 unique chemicals are used at various stages in plastics manufacturing, of which roughly 2,400 have been identified as chemicals of regulatory concern (22).

However, polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene are the three most common occurring polymers (5), being found in a countless number of household and personal care products (9, 10), cosmetic products (11), toothpaste (10, 12, 13) and plastic food containers (14).

Microplastics are omnipresent in our environment, being found in large quantities in oceans, rivers, ground water, sediments and soil environments, sewage, and even the air we breathe

microplastic accumulation was observed in the human placenta, raising important questions related to the biological effects of these contaminants on the health of pregnancies and offspring