This article from the New York Times highlights the growing and inevitable public health and environmental harms associated with the land application of biosolids that contain PFAS and other toxic chemicals, and the EPAs associated liability in encouraging the use of biosolids as fertilizer:
“The E.P.A. was encouraging farmers to use sludge as fertilizer. Human beings had used waste to fertilize the land for millenniums, after all. But, as Dr. Lewis pointed out with his research, modern-day sewage most likely contained a slew of chemicals, including PFAS, that made it a very dangerous fertilizer.
“The chances that serious adverse effects will occur from a complex and unpredictable mixture of tens of thousands of chemical pollutants is a virtual certainty,” he said at the time. His research prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue guidelines protecting workers handling processed sewage sludge.”
Unfortunately we’re currently seeing the exact same situation play out in BC, with both the Provincial government and CRD actively pursuing the land application of biosolids despite being well aware they contain PFAS, microplastics and other chemicals of concern that are then dispersed in our waterways, forests and farms.
Let’s hope that 2025 will go down as the year that the CRD pursued a safer and more sustainable strategy for the long term management of biosolids, and that our region’s ongoing leadership on this important issue kickstarts the phasing out of land application throughout the province.