Sewage Sludge Fertilizer From Maryland? Virginians Say No Thanks.

In 2023, sewerage plants in Maryland began making a worrying discovery. The “chemicals forever” harmful contaminated the wastewater of the state, much of which become fertilizers and extend in farmland.

To protect your food and drinking water, Maryland has begun to restrict the use of fertilizers made of wastewater mud. At the same time, an important manufacturer of sludge fertilizers, Synagro, Hasbet requests permits to use more or on the state border, in farms in Virginia.

A coalition of environmentalists, fishing groups and some farmers are fighting that effort. They say that pollution threatens to poison cultivation land and vulnerable roads that feed the Potomac River.

These wastewater sludge fertilizers “are not safe enough for farms in Maryland, so they come to Virginia,” said Dean Nujoks of the Potomac Riverkeeper network, which advocates clean water. “That’s wrong.”

Virginia finds ITELF at the receiving end of a pattern that is emerging throughout the country as states rushed to address a growing crisis of culture polling: states with Waker regulations run the risk of becoming reasons for contaminated reasons.

In Virginia, Synagro, one of the leading suppliers of the nations or the mud for use as fertilizer, has sought permission to apply more sludge in the Rural Virginia, according to local presentations. Synagro is controlled by a Goldman Sachs investment fund.

Chickn Cleverley, Synagro’s sustainability director, said in a statement that the fact that the fertilizer “may contain levels of PFA does not mean that they are contaminated.” He said that Synagro Continuous adds new farms to his fertilizer program and that his decision to look for additional permits in Virginia was independent or any guideline of Maryland.

The fertilizer industry says that more than 2 million dried wastewater tons were used in 4.6 million acres of cultivation lands in 2018. And estimates that farmers have obtained permits to use the wastewater mud in all Usy Agric Acres.

But a growing research body shows that the black mud, also known as biosolids and made of wastewater that flow from homes and factories, can contain strong concentrations of harmful chemicals called Persh and polyfluoroalquilo substances. It is believed that these chemicals increase the risk of some types of cancer and cause birth defects and development delays in children.

For people in regions such as the north of northern Virginia, the “Garden de Virginia” which is the birthplace of George Washington, the threat feels doubly unfair: much of the biosolids that move through the state lines of the lines as.

Contamination, the locals fear, will wash the farmlands and in the rivers and streams of the region, and will hurt the farmers and the panders who live next to each other.

“Water gets out of the farmland towards water,” said Lee Deihl, a seventh generation watermner that the Northern Neck Oyster Company possesses, maneuvered an oyster boat through a sinuous tributary of the Potomac. “And we have some quite large rains at this time of year.”

His Conerns are not unfounded. New research published in the scientific journal Nature found that the PFA in the mud applied as fertilizer can contaminaries both farms and surrounding streams.

“That current could be the head of its drinking water, more downstream, or chemicals can be bioacumulants in the fish,” said Diana Oviedo Vargas, a researcher at the Non -Party Stroud Water Research Center, which directed the Federallyyyyyyy. “There are many things that we do not know. But thesis pollutants are definitely reaching our surface waters.”

It is a complicated problem. The fertilizer made of wastewater sludge has benefits. The mud is rich in nutrients. And extend it in reduced fields on the need to incinerate it or put it in landfills. It also reduces the use of synthetic fertilizers made of fossil fuels.

But the mud can be contaminated with pathogens, as well as chemicals such as PFA, according to research. PFA synthetic chemicals are widely used in everyday items such as non -iatant kitchen utensils and stain -resistant carpets, and are linked to a variety of diseases.

The EPA regulates some pathogens and heavy metals in the mud used as fertilizer, but does not regulate the PFA. This year, for the first time, the EPA warned about the health risks of the PFA in fertilizers made of wastewater mud. The Biden administration last year also established the first federal standards of drinking water, saying that there was no safe level of chemicals.

The lack of federal rules on PFA in the mud has left the states in charge, which leads to a power of HOD regulations and the diversion of contaminated mud to the states with Waker regulations.

Maine prohibited the use of mud fertilizers in 2022. Since then, some of their wastewater sludge have sent bones of the local landfills of the state cannot accommodate it, local officials said.

Maryland temporarily arrested new permits for the use of mud as fertilizer. The Maryland Environment Department also ordered PFA tests in wastewater treatment plants throughout the state. He found pollution in wastewater and mud, just after the treatment process, and has now adopted guidelines, although voluntary, who say that the mud with high levels or PFA must be reported and eliminated.

In Virginia, the groups oppose Maryland’s wastewater imports are urging the State to start regulating PFA in the mud.

But in the meantime, tens of thousands of tons of Maryland mud already go to Virginia, according to Virginia’s data. The biosolids of 22 wastewater treatment plants in Maryland have been approved for use as fertilizer in Virginia, and the 22 plants have reported contamination by PFAS in their biosolids, according to an analysis of the Riverkeeper Potomac network.

In Westmoreland, a rural county in Northern Neck, Synagro has reported that the mud of 16 wastewater treatment plants in Maryland will apply, all of facilities that have reported PFAS pollution.

In December, Synagro requested an expansion of permits that would allow him to apply the mud in 2,000 additional agricultural lands in Westmoreland, rather than duplicate the total. After the comments filed by local residents caused a public hearing, Synagro withdrew his request, he thought he has told the regulators of Virginia who intends to re -apply.

In the neighboring neighbor of Essex, Synagro seeks to apply the mud to an addition of 6,000 acres, increasing the surface by almost a third, according to his permission request.

Synagro Mr. Cleverley said the biosolids that the company requested in Virginia the guidelines of the PFA of Maryland.

Irina Calos, spokesman for the Environmental Quality Department of Virginia, said that her condition had not yet seen a significant increase in the amount of Maryland biosolids that were applied in Virginia. She said the State still reviewed synagros applications to increase their acreal in Virginia.

Mrs. Calos also said that Virginia was not aware of Maryland’s biosolids with higher PFA levels than was reduced in Mabyland. Environmental groups have responded that it is difficult to verify.

Jay Aper, Maryland spokesman, said that state guidelines and test requirements were used to protect public health while supporting public services and farmers.

Robb Hinton, a fourth general farmer, has cultivated corn, soybeans and other crops in the Cedar Plain farm in Heathsville, Virginia, southeast of Essex and Westmoreland counties, for 45 years. The fears of farmers in the north neck are being deceived.

“When people give you something free, or almost free, it sounds attractive, and not culro any farmer to try it,” he said. But they had to remember that “it is these big cities that are bringing us their waste,” he said.

“I didn’t know about PFA until I was talking to my watermelon friends,” he said. “I can’t understand how Virginia is not likely for this.”

Synagro has also been directly pressed to farmers and other local residents. In a presentation in March, a representative of Synagro, together with a researcher from Virginia Tech, distributed data from a study that seemed to show that the fields that had recovered the sludge fertilizer had only one third of the PFA ashes levels of more fatteros such as fatters levels such as ash as fiber levels. Slides reviewed by The New York Times.

Synagro said he could not provide the full study because the company was not involved in it. Virginia Tech researcher appointed in the materials did not respond to comments requests.

At a meeting of the Water Control Board of the State of Virginia in March, Bryant Thomas, director of the Water Division of the Department of Environmental Quad of Virginia, said that the public had presented 27 comments on Synagro’s plans to expand its use of mud county. Of those comments, 26 expressed groups about the effects of mud on public health and wildlife, including seafood, he said.

Subsequently, the Board requested that the agency study the problem and report.

“I think it is interesting that Maryland is working on her rules and regulations, but then she sends us her biosolids in Virginia,” said Lou Ann Jessee-Wallace, president of the Water Board, in an interview. “In Virginia we will have to be in us to make sure we are a water bar and our citizens.”

Experts say that Maryland’s approach is a good first step. But only in Maryland, a bill that would have strengthened the boundaries of the PFA in the biosolids failed at the last minute. And “we are concerned about the mosaic of regulations between the states,” said Jean Zhuang, a main lawyer of the Soutonmento Law Center, a non -profit environmental group. “The federal government needs to play a more important role.”

President Biden had a leg to propose a rule that would have limited the number of PFA industrial facilities in its wastewater. The Trump administration has retired that proposal, he thought recently said he could develop his own effluent limits.

Throughout the south, the center has already been pressing wastewater treatment plants so that local factories and other industrial facilities clean their wastewater before it reaches the treatment plant. That forces polluting to control pollution at the source, or even eliminate the use of PFA completely, Zhuang said.

“If the wastewater treatment plants act, the Indies would be the ones that they paid for their own pollution,” he said, “not the families and communities that depend on farms and pastures for their food, water and sustenance.”

A recent night, Michael Lightfoot, a man of water, went out to get a cage of wire mesh oysters that cultivates in Jackson Creek, where he lives with his wife, Phyllis. After a career of almost three decades with the federal government, he retired in 2012 and since then he has a full time.

Lightfoot is part of an oyster culture in Virginia, which is now the largest oyster producer on the east coast and among the largest producers in the nation. But his proximity to contaminated farms worries him, he said. “There is no agricultural field that does not drain in our river routes,” he said.