The chemicals known collectively as PFAS – “forever chemicals” in some nomenclature because they don’t really break down in the environment – are causing lots of headaches because they’re showing up in groundwater.
Turns out, they’re showing up elsewhere, too, as BuzzFeed News reports:
“Forever chemicals” linked to cancer are turning up in farm produce across the country, leading farms to lay off workers, incinerate cranberry harvests, kill cows, and dump thousands of gallons of dairy milk.
The article talks about farmers in Maine who spread sludge from wastewater treatment plants as fertilizer – a common practice. Sewage treatment doesn’t remove these chemicals, at least not to the level that new research indicates is safe. It will be very expensive, I suspect, to meet those standards.
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