Despite well-known environmental risks, some farmers are willing to roll the dice and accept the minimally treated municipal sewage sludge (aka biosolids) or industrial waste (aka industrial residuals) on their fields. This practice poses health and safety risks for our community and the environment.
Sewage sludge contains pathogens and toxic chemicals. In particular, biosolids have been found to contain high loads of so-called “forever chemicals” or PFAS.
The EPA has known since 2003 that biosolids are contaminated with PFAS, and yet it continues to promote toxic sewage sludge as a safe fertilizer, prioritizing the needs, sanitation, and convenience of city folks over the health of rural Americans. In early 2025, the EPA finally acknowledged that PFAS in biosolids presents a health risk to people living on or near farms that receive sludge, but it has not yet taken any action to protect rural people from these risks.
When PFAS is found on farmland, it can lead to devasting economic consequences. Several farms across the country with PFAS contamination have been ordered to shut down. In Maine, which banned the spreading of biosolids on farmland entirely, the state government recently created a
$60 million fund to aid farms impacted by PFAS contamination. Despite these realities, Virginia does not even require biosolids to be tested for PFAS before it is spread on thousands of acres of rural land.
Compared to other parts of Albemarle County, sewage sludge is applied disproportionately in Southern Albemarle, and in the Totier Creek Watershed in particular. Much of the sludge applied to land in our area comes from the Blue Plains treatment plant in Washington, DC, the
largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in the world.
