Read the full article by Emily Kenny (Spectrum News 1).
“New research from the University at Albany shows a difference in how plants absorb various types of forever chemicals when farms spread sewage sludge, raising red flags for unregulated chemicals that could contaminate crops like corn and lettuce.
Weilan Zhang, a professor in the Department of Environmental and Sustainable Engineering at UAlbany, is researching how land-applied biosolids can release per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) into the surrounding environment, including how crops grown in these fields can absorb these chemicals.
‘We’re trying to understand how much PFAS can be transferred from the impacted soil to the crops,’ said Zhang.
Sewage sludge is the end product of the wastewater treatment process that is occasionally used as fertilizer on farmland because it reduces costs for farmers. However, advocates in New York have pushed to ban the practice over concerns of PFAS contamination in nearby drinking wells.
‘Initially, people thought this is safe for use, that we can use them as fertilizers, but the PFAS absorbed into the biosolids can be gradually released over time, especially in soil with some rainfall event or some runoff, it can carry those released PFAS and spread them through the environment,’ Zhang said.”…