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Letters
April 8, 2024 Editor, The News-Gazette: Paying close attention to the health of our natural environment, I read an article in the Rockbridge Conservation (RC) winter newsletter about the toxic levels of PFAS in Rockbridge waters.
Over the last two years, RC has invested considerable effort working with the advanced toxicology laboratory of Virginia Tech to determine levels of PFAS in our waters. The results are not good. “All samples except controls revealed PFAS toxicity, enough to make (eating) fish unsafe and possibly inducing cancer over a human lifetime.” (River and Ridge News, February 2024).
The most likely source of this contamination is a particular kind of biosolid from sewage sludge, spread on farms upstream of the testing sites. Sewage sludge is the solids left over from wastewater treatment. Biosolids are not tested for PFAS “forever chemicals” before application on farms as fertilizer. Some sewage sludge includes landfill leachate, which is often high in PFAS.
Of the three wastewater treatment plants that provide sewage sludge to farms, two include landfill leachate: the Maury Service Authority (MSA) in Rockbridge and North River Waste Water Treatment Plant in Harrisonburg. These sources pay Houff Corporation of Augusta County to take these substances to spread on farms. Despite offers from RC and Tech to complete free testing, neither MSA nor the Rockbridge landfill do any testing for PFAS in leachate or biosolids.
All of this happens because there are no state, federal, or local laws that regulate spreading biosolids untested for PFAS onto farmland. Still, one would think Rockbridge County government would want to protect the health of its citizens by putting a stop to this behavior. At the least, the public facilities involved should allow Tech to test landfill leachate and biosolids for PFAS. Our local Farm Bureau, with its considerable political influence, could persuade farmers to abandon this practice.
It’s past time to protect the public health and safety from these toxic chemicals. Let’s do some spring cleaning and put an end to this dangerous behavior! GRETCHEN SUKOW Lexington
