Back in the early 1980s when I began my organic vegetable garden I was regularly reading up on various soil amendments to help improve the tilth and fertility of the soil. I also asked neighbors what they used for those purposes. I didn't want to add synthetic chemicals. Eventually I settled on hauling up seaweed from the shore, for nitrogen fertilizer, and adding limestone and wood ashes from the woodstove, as well as phosphorus that I got from a local nursery. When I could find chicken manure and other nitrogen sources I added these as well. And throughout the year I made compost which also helped.
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At that time, one of the things that the university extension office discussed as a possible fertilizer was sewage sludge. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) promoted it. There was a good deal of it available, in truckloads that could be ordered from suppliers; it may also have been available in fifty pound bags for a dollar or two per bag. It was plentiful and inexpensive, in other words, and many a farm took advantage of the opportunity. I did not, thinking that there may have been sewage treatment chemicals in the mix that were harmful. The extension office, as I recall, hedged its bets on that score, saying that it was claimed that sewage sludge was all organic, but that farmers should make up their own minds. I decided seaweed was better, even though it was a lot of work hauling it into my pickup truck in wheelbarrow loads and then dumping it either into compost piles or the garden directly where it would serve either as a mulch or sheet compost or both.
Now, forty years later, it turns out that the sewage sludge was indeed harmful. It contained "forever chemicals," perfluoroalkyl substances that are poisonous and that stay in the soil forever. Many an organic farmer in the state of Maine used these on their soils in the last century, and who knows how many people absorbed them from the supposedly organic vegetables they ate, as well as the livestock that was fed on fields fertilized with sewage sludge, and the water that the chemicals leached into. As far as I know, there was no sewage sludge used anywhere on this island; however, on a neighboring island at least one site has already been identified. Time will probably reveal more.
Now the state will be spending millions of dollars per year to identify areas where the sludge was dumped and then take whatever mitigation measures may work. Meanwhile the farms that used the sludge have got to stop using those fields, which in most cases means the end of those farms. It would not be a good idea to remain living on them on account of the chemical pollution in the drinking water. And the water poses a danger to people living nearby as well. It is a very sad story.
One of the farms that closed was an organic farming operation in Unity, Maine, Songbird Farm. Unity, home of Unity College, is close to the headquarters of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, in neighboring Thorndike. Songbird Farm is typical of organic farms in the state, supplying wholesale organic foods to food co-ops and grocery stores and operating a regional CSA with more than 100 subscribers. It turned out that decades before the current owners purchased the farm, previous owners had spread the sewage sludge on the fields, contaminating them and the water supply. The couple that own the farm have been drinking this PFAS-contaminated water for years. They also have a 3-year-old son who has been drinking it since birth. They have stopped delivery of foods and advised their customers to throw away their unsold and unconsumed products until more information based on further testing of soils and water is available. For now, and perhaps forever, the farm will be closed; and if it has to close, the farmers will become bankrupt and a community resource for good will disappear.
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