Added concerns over biosolids and farming

© Alexey Stiop | Dreamstime.com

By Stac­­­y Gittleman

In the early 1990s farmers across the nation, was well as in Michigan, began applying biosolids – fertilizer sludge produced from human waste processed at wastewater treatment facilities – to farmland where produce for humans and animals were grown.

The biosolids use was a boon for farmers because it was typically free, with perhaps a small fee for applications on the land where crops would be planted. And the biosolids fertilizer was high in nitrogen and other elements that aided crop development.

But even in the early days of biosolids application on farmland, there were critics who questioned the safety of the process and the impact on human health. Now, years later, the concerns are proving even more valid thanks to presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – often referred to as forever chemicals. If present in high enough concentration levels, these forever chemicals can pose a threat to not only the food chain but in some cases can render farmland not safe enough to produce crops in the future, which has taken place in other states as well as in Michigan where in neighboring Livingston County a farm has been rendered unable to be used.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) in May announced a renewed vigor on attacking the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), in our drinking water and biosolids, the waste that is left over after treating wastewater.

In an earlier April announcement, the EPA announced it would aggressively tackle the nation’s forever chemicals dilemma by advancing research and testing to understand PFAS absorption levels in food, stopping PFAS from getting into drinking water systems, holding polluters accountable, and providing certainty for passive receivers, meaning the thousands of farms around the country that voluntarily received or continue to receive biosolids.

“With this approach, EPA will provide the foundation and investment necessary for a toolbox that will help states and communities dealing with PFAS contamination,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in a May press release. “This list is the first, not the last, of all decisions and actions EPA will be taking to address PFAS throughout the Trump administration. There will be more to come in the future across EPA’s program offices to help communities impacted by PFAS contamination.”

While these developments may signal the creation of a highly-anticipated comprehensive federal roadmap on PFAS remediation that state regulators have been waiting for, that’s going to be a tall order to fill considering the Trump administration wants to slash the agency’s budget by 64 percent.

States have been largely on their own in regulating and mitigating PFAS in biosolids, with many of them looking to Michigan as setting the bar in terms of pioneering an approach that heads off forever chemicals at the source with its Industrial Pre-Treatment Program (IPP).

In 2022, the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) released the findings from a survey of state environmental regulatory agencies on policies, testing, research gaps, and risk communication challenges related to PFAS in biosolids. Thirty-four states, including Michigan, responded to the survey.

All states are subject to federal regulations under Part 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 503 for biosolids use and disposal. These regulations allow for the land application of biosolids on food crops while also giving states the authority to make independent decisions about how to further manage biosolids, while allowing some states to prohibit the practice.

Michigan is the only state that responded to the survey reporting that it has industrial pretreatment standards for PFAS.

Maine is the only state with a ban on applying biosolids to lands. Maine and Michigan are the only states that have any prohibitions or restrictions on biosolids’ beneficial use based on PFAS concentrations.

Nine states (Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas) reported that they have counties, municipalities, or other jurisdictions that have established individual standards, bans, monitoring regimes, or other regulations related to biosolids disposal or land application. Six states (Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Vermont) require sampling for PFAS in biosolids. Three states (Colorado, Michigan, and New Hampshire) require source control and reporting based on PFAS concentrations. Four states (Connecticut, Michigan, Nevada, and New Hampshire) implemented industry-specific pretreatment programs, meaning industrial plants must treat their wastewater and cannot release the effluent to municipal wastewater treatment plants unless it first reduces PFAS levels onsite.

Forever chemicals are a class of thousands of long-stranded molecular man-made compounds that garnered their name because their molecular bonds are the strongest manmade on earth and they do not degrade or break down in the environment. According to researchers, 99 percent of organisms on earth, from humans living in metro Detroit to polar bears living in the Arctic Circle, have these forever chemicals in there systems. And unlike other toxins that enter the body, they do not get excreted and tend to stick around and accumulate over a lifetime.

The most pervasive and harmful of these compounds include perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), the kinds used by the military for firefighting drills. Both mentioned chemicals are commonly known as PFAS. They were eventually linked to kidney, liver, and thyroid cancers, as well as many other ailments. PFOS was phased out of production in 2002, and U.S. manufacturers eliminated PFOA emissions and product content by 2015.

Treated wastewater sludge, also known as biosolids under the Clean Water Act, is the byproduct of the thousands of municipal wastewater treatment plants around the country responsible for keeping our drinking, surface, and groundwater supplies clean and free from contaminants and harmful pathogens.

Before the passage of the 1988 Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, it was permissible for coastal regions of the country to dump it into the ocean.

When that disposal method ended, three options remained. Landfills for biosolids are running out of space and incinerating it is highly energy-intensive, contributing to high carbon emissions and other harmful pollutants emitted into the air and land.

Some say that recycling our biosolids by applying them onto land – either to farms, forests, or recreation areas, is the best option to deal with the waste we generate every time we flush the toilet, run our dishwasher or washing machine, or pour stuff down the kitchen sink. Proponents say that recycling biosolids this way enriches soils with organic, nutrient-rich matter and reduces reliance on synthetic fertilizers.

There is a risk however, that land application of biosolids introduces PFAS to the environment, allowing it to damage farmland and water sources.

Researchers are only beginning to understand how PFAS interacts with soil and how crops absorb the chemicals into their roots, leaves and fruit.

Regulated somewhat by federal policies and mostly from state to state, biosolids are divided into two classifications.

Class A biosolids cannot contain measurable quantities of pathogens and must meet stricter EPA guidelines for land application. They are permitted to be used for agriculture, public residential and commercial applications.

Class B biosolids can be applied on land but are more strictly regulated. Food, feed and fiber crops cannot be harvested for a minimum of 30 days after the last application. Above-ground food crops must not be harvested for a minimum of 14 months after the last application. Below-ground food crops must not be harvested for a minimum of 20 months after the last surface application where the material remains on the surface for four months or longer before incorporation, or a minimum of 38 months after the last surface application where the materials remain on the surface for less than four months before incorporation.

When Class B biosolids are applied, livestock and domestic animals are prohibited from grazing on them for a minimum of 30 days. Turf raised cannot be harvested until one year after the last application and public access is restricted at least 30 days and up to a full year after application.

Janine Wells is executive director of the Northeast Biosolids Residuals Association (NEBRA), a pro-land-applying nonprofit organization that promotes the benefits of recycling the nutrients found in biosolids over the risks of disposal methods.

“There’s incineration, landfilling, and recycling,” explained Burke-Wells. “That’s a pretty shaky stool. I wish we had something like a sturdy couch to sit on. I think in 20 years; we will have many more options on how to dispose of and recycle biosolids. But for now, it’s going to be pretty ugly.”

Speaking to Downtown between plenary sessions at the May 2025 Water Environment Federation Biosolids Conference in Baltimore, Md., Wells commended Michigan’s clamping down on PFOS and PFOA threshold levels and its pioneering approach of attacking these substances at industrial sources in wastewater before they head to municipal treatment plants.

“Source reduction is key to the problem and that is the thing to get done first and fast,” Wells said. “Michigan has succeeded in getting PFAS levels in biosolids down to very low levels in a very short amount of time. I can't say enough good stuff about that adaptive management approach and I wish the EPA had initiated something similar.”

Wells said understanding how plants absorb PFAS through their roots is extremely complicated. Varying factors include soil composition, density and nutrient distribution to name a few.

Wells said that on Maine’s contaminated farms, studies by the United States Centers for Disease Control show that plant uptake of forever chemicals in leafy greens or hay used for livestock happens more quickly than crops such as corn and wheat. As farmers made multiple cuts of hay or grass during a single season, PFAS levels in those crops tended to be higher in the second or third cuts.

While capturing forever chemicals that come from industrial sites in Michigan before these waters hit our municipal wastewater treatment plants is a step in the right direction, there still lurks the problem that so much of our consumer products – from clothing to makeup to carpeting – still may be made with forever chemicals.

“There’s a Minnesota study saying that 75 percent of the load of forever chemicals headed to our municipal wastewater treatment plants is coming from residential areas every time we wash our clothes or clean our carpets,” Wells said. “We need to get back to the source and that is reducing or eliminating forever chemicals used in consumer products.”

Wells added that it is crucial to solve this problem so the application of biosolids on farmlands can be implemented without hesitation to reap the benefits they supply.

“Biosolids offer overall soil improvements and are a wonderful source of phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium,” Wells said. “We are talking 92 percent of the potassium farmers need without having to mine for it or import it from China. Biosolids land applications also offset carbon emissions because the soil sequesters the carbon into the ground instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.”

Stephanie Kanner is the emergent pollution section manager of Michigan EGLE’s Water Resources Division. Kanner’s team is dedicated to implementing strategies to address PFAs in municipal and industrial wastewater and the residuals, or biosolids that are pulled from treated wastewater. In offering a brief history of the state’s approach to PFAS in biosolids, Kanner said in 2017 the then-called Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) began testing municipal wastewater and identified 80 municipal WTTPs that had high levels of PFAS in their effluent, which could be traced back to untreated water discharges from nearby factories and other industries.

In 2018, the state launched its statewide Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP) and required 95 municipal wastewater treatment plants located in industrialized areas to identify industries that were releasing wastewater into their treatment plants that were using forever chemicals as a part of their industrial process.

Kanner said the IPP was a successful way to identify reduce, and monitor sources of PFOS.

“At the beginning of this initiative, 69 percent of the 95 wastewater treatment plants had already met their water quality standards,” Kanner said. “Through aggressive source reduction efforts, the remaining facilities have continued their effective PFOS concentration reductions in treated wastewater by 49 to 99 percent compared to pre-2018 levels. The program marked a significant step in managing and mitigating the impact of these contaminants on Michigan's water resources by tracing high levels of PFAS in effluents back to untreated discharges from nearby factories and other industries.”

Kanner continued: “We identified five facilities that had what we considered industrially impacted biosolids. They included Wixom, Bronson, Lapeer, Ionia, and the K.I. Sawyer Air Force base in Marquette. They contained PFOS/PFOA at higher levels than the rest of the state, and they were usually medium or small plants whose effluent came from industrial sites.”

The WRD in 2018 halted land application of biosolids from those five plants and continued with a study that examined PFAS levels in biosolids at 42 plants around the state to develop PFAS/PFOA threshold levels that would be classified as industrially impacted biosolids. If counts reached this level, it was no longer allowed to participate in the state’s applied biosolids distribution program.

“As far as where these biosolids can wind up, that is the million-dollar question,” Kanner admitted. “Some of the facilities were able to landfill the waste, but at least two of the facilities are keeping these contaminated biosolids in containers onsite because they have not found an economical way to dispose of them. There's no grant program to help them offset the cost for disposal, so there it sits until there is a viable place for these biosolids to be disposed.”

Under its 2021 interim strategy, Michigan banned the land application of industrially impacted biosolids containing more than 150 parts per billion (ppb) of PFOS and now requires testing of all biosolids before land application. By 2021, with the IPP well underway, Kanner said EGLE expanded its efforts testing PFAS/PFOA levels in biosolids at the state’s municipal wastewater treatment plants.

“We wanted to ensure that not just the IPP facilities but all wastewater facilities that would be land applying their biosolids would need to sample them before they land applied them,” Kanner said. “The 2021 interim plan required that any municipal wastewater treatment plant wishing to land apply their biosolids would have to provide a sample to EGLE and submit those results to EGLE and compare the thresholds in the sample to our acceptable thresholds. The rules allow us to take a site-specific approach. We developed our own rules to develop this strategy and so far, everybody’s complying.”

While efforts in the 2021 Interim plan focused on PFOS, in 2024, EGLE turned its attention to bringing down levels of PFOA.

Kanner said though EGLE had not seen high concentrations of PFOA in most municipal wastewater supplies, it wanted to put a second focus on this chemical because there were a few facilities with elevated levels. Kanner added that EGLE focuses on PFOS and PFOA because they are the most federally studied forever chemicals with the longest molecular structures that are most likely to accumulate in tested organisms such as fish and wild game. We wanted to bring this chemical into the spotlight because there were a few plants that

Kanner said EGLE is prioritizing its efforts on managing PFAS/PFOA levels in biosolids at the industrial and municipal wastewater level rather than sampling soils on farmland for these chemicals.

“Sampling soils on farms is not part of our strategy for now,” Kanner said. “Testing for forever chemicals in soils is a costly and complicated process. Michigan has in the past taken samples from some fields and many variables go into this, such as soil depth and mineral concentration to name a few. Testing the soil would open up many questions, such as how and who would conduct the testing, and who would pay for it all down the road, we would like some guidance from the EPA on this,” Kanner said. “At this point, we are not focusing on testing soils.”

EGLE also requires additional monitoring and quality requirements for biosolids that are designated as exceptional quality under its updated 2024 rules. According to Scott Dean, EGLE spokesperson.

“With the implementation of the IPP PFAS initiative and the interim biosolids strategy, we have seen an overall decrease in PFOS and PFOA concentrations in both municipal wastewater treatment plant discharges and biosolids,” Dean said. “Our updated strategy in 2024 includes lowering counts down to 20 parts per billion. Any facility that has PFAS levels that exceed this count requires WWTPs to sample its effluent within 60 days if it is not already being conducted through the industrial pretreatment program.”

Dean stressed that EGLE’s focus remains on protecting the safety of the state’s drinking and surface waters against elevated levels of forever chemicals. For this, they have created a model program for the rest of the country.

“We have states calling us all the time to learn about our program because of where we are putting our focus,” Dean said. “People typically buy food from a global market and therefore that makes PFAS exposure hard to pin down. EGLE sees the best place to put our resources on reducing people’s exposure to PFAS is in the quality of our drinking water.”

All wastewater treatment plants in the state that land apply their biosolids work through EGLE’s residual management program for permitting. Sampling is conducted once per calendar year before land application.

Detroit’s Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) dominates Michigan’s biosolids production.

In 2024, GLWA processed 30,000 dry tons through incineration, 74,000 dry tons were processed through a heating and drying facility to be used for land applications, and 862 tons were landfilled for an annual total of 105,3000 tons of biosolids, according to Majid Khan, director of wastewater operations.

GLWA contracts the operation of its biosolids drying facility to Synagro/New England Fertilizer Company, which is responsible for the distribution of its class A fertilizer pellets exported to Canada.

In 2024, four GLWA biosolids samples were evaluated for PFOS, resulting in an average value of 4.9 ppb which is 75 percent below the threshold levels. Khan stated that GLWA continues to implement its PFOS/PFOA minimization program to reduce the concentration found in biosolids.

In 2022 the Clinton River wastewater treatment plant, run by the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner and serving 13 municipalities in Oakland County, launched its $32 million resource recovery biosolids project to not only reduce forever chemicals in its biosolids but shrink biosolids volume by 20 percent and cuts disposal costs by 50 percent.

Although EGLE has listed the facility’s biosolids as Class A, the biosolids produced here since 2019 have been shipped to Canada for farming fertilizer, according to Michael Daniels, plant manager.

Daniels said in the past the biosolids were being used by farmers in Michigan and the levels of PFOS were well below the 20 ppb threshold.

Daniels said because of the lack of nearby industry, the effluent headed to the plant was not impacted by heavy amounts of forever chemicals as other facilities experienced that were close to tanneries, automotive chrome plating plants, or Airforce bases. Any PFAS coming into the wastewater plant as effluent originates in leachate from local landfills, which have been issued pretreatment permits to remediate levels on site.

Daniels said because of the plant’s proximity to the Canadian border, it is cheaper to pay a Canadian company to haul its annual 3,000 tons of biosolids away at $30 per ton than pay for the state to land apply it in Michigan at $60 per ton.

“For us, it was about the money, not the forever chemicals,” Daniels explained. “We have an exceptional quality of biosolid that is going to Canada, which has a much more relaxed level of a PFOS threshold, which is about 50 parts per billion.”

In 2024, the Walled Lake Novi wastewater treatment plant produced 393 dry tons of class B biosolids.

These biosolids are land-applied in Oakland, Genesee and Washtenaw counties.

The plant has been proactive in managing PFAS contamination, maintaining low levels of 7.8 ppb for PFOS and 1.8 parts per billion for PFOA -- well below the state's 20 ppb limit for biosolids, according to Mary Koeger, assistant chief engineer with Oakland County Water Resources.

Koeger said this is well below EGLE’s threshold counts and attributes this low number to local commercial and industrial entities in its service area which are closely adhering to their sewerage industrial pretreatment program.

“We want to do what's best for the environment and use the community’s funds wisely,” Koeger said. “Instead of putting millions of dollars into this equipment that might not necessarily work to remove PFAS once it reaches the wastewater treatment plant, it is best to educate our communities and our commercial users to try to get them away from these chemicals to begin with.”

One of the most severely impacted WWTPs in the area is the Wixom facility located downstream from automotive supplier Tribar Manufacturing.

Tribar used PFOS as a fume suppressant to protect workers around its chromium plating baths. In 2015, facing a federal deadline to stop using PFOS, Tribar switched to a different type of PFAS chemical.

Wixom had been distributing its biosolids to agricultural land under EGLE’s residuals management plan since 2000.

In 2018 EGLE ran tests at the facility as part of its statewide PFAS study and found that high levels of PFAS, specifically PFOS, were being passed through the treatment process at the plant. PFOS levels were 269 parts per trillion (ppt) in the effluent and 2,150 ppb in the biosolids.

When it was discovered that it was receiving contaminated effluent from Tribar and other local industries, EGLE in 2018 ordered Wixom to halt land applying its biosolids and they have been sent to a landfill ever since.

Tim Sikma, Wixom’s public works director said since 2018, his plant has worked with EGLE and its IPP and has been able to drastically reduce PFAS counts. It also hired a private environmental consultant company to remove forever chemicals from the one million gallons of heavily impacted wastewater sludge that were held onsite so that the treated water could eventually be discharged under the WWTP’s national pollutant discharge elimination system permit.

Currently, Wixom’s forever chemicals count meets or exceeds PFAS standards without requiring additional treatment because of EGLE’s IPP.

Overall, Sikma said regulating legacy pollutants, and what that can mean for the practice of land applying biosolids, remain a huge concern across the entire wastewater industry. That is why he is hopeful that regulators move in the direction of abating forever chemical uses at their sources and continue to research in enhancing abilities to remove and remediate forever chemicals from wastewater and biosolids.

By constantly testing and monitoring all phases of the wastewater cycle, Sikma believes the practice of applying biosolids can and should continue.

“If the regulations change so that we're no longer able to land apply biosolids as a whole, farming is going to become more expensive, and so is the treatment of solids from water resource recovery facilities,” Sikma said “This is the concern across my industry. The analytical procedures we have now are so much better than they used to be. If we are scrupulous with our treatment, research, and testing at the industrial pretreatment and biosolid phases before they are applied on land, and if we are meeting the standards, that is what we are supposed to be doing. It makes sense not only at the wastewater side of things but for the farmers, who need the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium our biosolids can provide.”

That sentiment is not shared though by farmers who have been severely impacted by contaminated biosolids.

For decades, unchecked biosolids that were spread on farms caused contamination so acute in states like Maine and South Carolina that swaths of farmland can be considered federal Superfund contamination sites.

While the problem appears to be not as pervasive in Michigan, there is one impacted farm that can no longer be cultivated due to the presence of forever chemicals in its soil.

Cattle farmer Jason Grostic in Livingston County unknowingly received contaminated biosolids from Wixom. Now, his 400-acre farm, land his family has owned for over a century, has the distinction as the only one shut down by the state due to high PFAS contamination.

Grostic, his wife, and his children still live on the farm, which is going bankrupt. He wants to pass this farm down to his children. They care for the livestock the state bought for him at cost because he can no longer bring them to market for meat consumption. When he is not caring for his farm or his family, or raising money to pay his bills, he is actively speaking and raising awareness of the devastating effects of PFAS on agriculture.

In January 2022, EGLE determined that the cattle had consumed feed that had absorbed dangerous levels of PFAS that were detectible in beef samples taken from the farm’s freezer. Although the farm's beef results didn't fit current USDA criteria for a recall or market withdrawal, Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services determined that prolonged consumption of the beef from this farm could increase PFOS levels in the human body.

State agencies and Grostic notified customers who had recently purchased the meat, including a nearby elementary school.

Grostic said that he has received little to no financial support from the state outside of buying off the heads of cattle to take them out of the consumer market. Over the years he has filed a lawsuit against Tribar Manufacturing for allowing heavy amounts of PFAS to contaminate the wastewater stream that headed to Wixom’s treatment plant.

“The state did not outright condemn my farm, but on my property, there is a sign that says we can no longer use our farm for agricultural purposes, to grow crops or cultivate livestock for human or animal consumption ever again,” Grostic said. “When they came to sample my soil for a study in 2019, they knew already that my land had been contaminated.”

He continued. “It took them three years to serve me a seizure notice. I knew it was going to be really bad when they next came to sample my beef. After a few Zoom meetings at the beginning of 2022, the state then washed its hands of me and walked away. They could care less.”

Jennifer Holton, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Rural Development, said her department works closely with MPART in supporting any farming sites that have been contaminated in the state and relies on the efforts done at the wastewater treatment level to protect soils on the farm. Holton said she could not comment further on the situation at Grostic Farms because the case is in litigation.

“In Michigan, we need a high quality of soil and water to support a strong agricultural economy,” Holton said. “When it comes to the issue of testing soils, we need stronger federal guidance. A lack of this guidance is a big hole in our plans to move forward.”

Grostic said though he is closed for business, he has opened his farm to PFAS researchers at Michigan State University.

Professor Emeritus Arthur Jones is the interim director of the MSU PFAS analytical laboratory, which is embarking on research projects with Grostic on forever chemical uptake in crops and livestock and how forever chemicals interact with soil.

Jones explained that there are currently no state or federal regulations for PFAS in soil and farmland. While drinking water regulations exist, agricultural lands remain largely unprotected. He said this regulatory gap became starkly evident through the case of Grostic’s farm.

Jones said his team of researchers is investigating how PFAS move from contaminated soil into crop plants and studying how to bind PFAS to the soil to reduce uptake into crops, especially leafy greens, and how livestock can go through “detox” to clear their systems of forever chemicals, evidence is showing that cattle can clear their systems of PFAS more quickly than humans.

“It was the fact that Michigan was so ahead of the game in monitoring and testing biosolids for PFAS that led the state to test his farm for it, and it’s a sad situation,” said Jones, whose son is a cattle rancher in California. “I think the regulators in Michigan were motivated by the right concerns, that they were in danger of the public consuming contaminated meat, but they shut his farm down without providing a solution.”

Jones is skeptical that Grostic’s farm is the only one that received impacted biosolids but the state legislature is not calling for additional tracing.

“Grostic’s farm is not the only farm that could have received these biosolids,” Jones mused. “And if that’s the case, where did it all go?”

According to data from EGLE, in 2015, 21 percent of the biosolids were land-applied in Michigan with 42 percent landfilled and 28 percent incinerated.

In 2017, the year before the state initiated its IPP program and began testing biosolids for PFOS, 43 percent of the biosolids were land-applied in-state and 11 percent were exported to Canada. That was when applying biosolids in Michigan was at its height.

By 2024, percentages of land-applied biosolids were trending up again with 32 percent of biosolids applied to land in Michigan and 24 percent of its land applied out of state.

Jones said the MSU Cooperative Extension staff has hosted listening tours with concerned Michigan farmers. Some are confidentially having their soils and water tested at MSU laboratories. Overall, Jones and EGLE officials said because of the global food market, and because that biosolids are spread on farmland all over the world, the problem is very hard to pinpoint. Most of us are already walking around with forever chemicals in our blood.

And for now, most in the state’s $125.8 billion agricultural industry that provides the economy with 800,000 jobs are making sure their lands remain economically viable.

“Most farmers are a skeptical bunch as it is,” Jones said. “They certainly don't want the state to come in and test for the soil with the prospect that their farm could get shut down too without having a solution for what to do about it.”

Most environmental advocate organizations give a nod of approval to Michigan’s efforts to head off PFAS contamination of biosolids at the source. However, they say there is still more aggressive work that needs to be done to eliminate the presence of forever chemicals in manufacturing and commercial products and processes to avoid these chemicals from getting into the environment in the first place.

Cheryl Vosburg is executive director of the Michigan Water Environment Association (MWEA), which advocates for robust and clear state and federal policies that emphasize source reduction as the most effective way to address PFAS contamination while providing training and support to water utilities in their mission to safeguard public health.

Her organization believes the state’s IPP program is only the start in PFAS remediation from biosolids and the environment in general.

“The industrial pretreatment and removal technologies are not the complete answer,” Vosburg said. “We are advocating for removing these chemicals from the manufacturing processes and more immediately product labeling so consumers can know when they are buying something that contains PFAS.”

When it is done properly, Vosburg said MWEA supports applying biosolids on farmland and works to dispel misconceptions about the practice.

"Nobody wants what happened at Grostic Farms to happen anywhere else," Vosberg said. "We all produce biosolids, and they have to go somewhere. Landfills are running out of space and are reluctant to accept liquid waste, while incineration is energy-intensive and expensive. The state’s industrial pre-treatment programs have significantly reduced PFAS levels entering wastewater treatment systems.”

On the other end of the spectrum is the three-year-old New England nonprofit Just Zero which believes all biosolids should be diverted to lined landfills for disposal.

“There was a public relations campaign a while back to come up with a new name for treated sewerage sludge and they picked the term biosolids,” said Laura Orlando, a senior scientist working with Just Zero.

Raised on a family farm in Benton Harbor, Mich., Orlando remembers sludge being spread on nearby farms on cold winter days, though her family opted out of receiving land applications. A faculty member at the Boston University School of Public Health since 1993 where she has for decades focused on wastewater health, Orlando said that Michigan's thresholds for PFAS in biosolids are too high. Also, by only going after two of the thousands of forever chemicals that have been pumped into the consumer and industrial market, Orlando said EGLE and MDARD are giving the public a false sense of safety.

Instead, Orlando favors a complete ban on land application of biosolids as practiced in Maine. There, the state has also put aside a fund to compensate for the livelihood of impacted farmers.

“Spreading biosolids poisons soil, food and people," Orlando said. "Michigan's program by going after only two out of thousands of kinds of forever chemicals is not protective of water quality, soil health, human health, or wildlife."

Orlando criticized MDARD’s reluctance to look and monitor for PFAS on farmland compared to Maine’s efforts, which include a $100 million fund to aid farmers with contaminated land.

“That’s because when you start looking, you are going to find appalling levels of forever chemicals wherever the sludge has been spread,” Orlando said.

Back at his farm, Grostic said that not only has he lost his livelihood as a farmer, but he has also lost connections with the tight-knit community of farmers nearby. He knows of a few farms that are still using biosolids, but he said they would never allow the government to take soil samples as he voluntarily did.

“Technically I am not a farmer anymore, so I am no longer in that circle,” Grostic said. “The few farming friends I have left, we just don’t talk about farming anymore; we talk about life.”

Grostic has connected with groups like Just Zero and farmers in Maine who share a common plight of having a non-working farm. There is talk in Maine of researching what crops are less likely to absorb PFAS. While leafy green crops have a high absorption rate of PFAS, crops like corn and maybe wheat are slow to uptake the chemicals, he said.

He is also working on research projects with Myconaut, a Northern Michigan biotech startup using fungi to remove PFAS from soil. They are exploring the potential of mycoremediation, where certain mushrooms and other fungi can break down these toxic chemicals.

In 2024, Myconaut received a $275,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and funds will go toward expanding the lab and its research staff.

Grostic with Myconaut is planting three acres of fiber hemp treated with microorganisms designed to break down forever chemicals.

“This is the second research project I am doing with this lab, and I am highly encouraged by the results they are seeing so far,” said Grostic. “Maybe, in 10 years time, we’ll have the ground cleaned up again.”