For decades, SC farmers have fertilized fields with sludge. It could be having toxic impacts

For years, farmers across South Carolina have used sludge from factories and sewage plants to fertilize the fields where crops grow and cattle graze.

Applied to thousands of acres since the 1990s, the sludge is billed as a cheap way to enrich the soil.

But increasingly, chemicals suspected of causing cancer, high cholesterol and other health problems are being found in the mucky waste.

Scientists, environmentalists and some farmers worry that the pollutants in sludge, called PFAS or forever chemicals, are contaminating drinking water, poisoning crops and sickening people.

“We’re talking about cancer-causing chemicals that can get into surface water and, therefore, into drinking water systems or in fish people eat,’’ said environmental lawyer Ben Cunningham, who has pushed the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to tighten state oversight of sewer sludge.

Statewide, DHEC has approved at least 80,000 acres of agricultural land to be sprayed with sludge, a mushy byproduct from wastewater plants, textile factories and other industrial facilities, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by The State Media Co. and McClatchy, the Columbia newspaper’s parent company.

That’s more than 3,500 agricultural fields that have been approved for sludge disposal, the news organizations found.

Sludge sites pepper the state

Each dot represents the location of a DHEC permitted sludge site

Spreading sludge on farm fields occurs today even as regulators are identifying unsafe levels of forever chemicals in the state’s rivers, streams, drinking water plants and private wells.

Two-thirds of the tests that DHEC has conducted on state rivers and lakes found one or both of the most common types of forever chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, at levels above a proposed federal standard. All told, more than 100 rivers, streams and lakes have been tested in the last three years.

State Rep. JA Moore, D-Charleston, called the finding that 80,000 acres are approved for sludge spreading “shocking but not surprising.’’ DHEC and state legislators haven’t done enough to prevent threats from forever chemicals in sewer sludge and other sources, Moore said.

“It’s dangerous that we’re not taking this more seriously,” Moore said.

Lawmakers failed to adopt Moore’s 2021 proposal to set a state drinking water limit on forever chemicals, two years before the federal government proposed a PFAS limit for the two most common types. The federal safe drinking water limit, proposed last spring, won’t be final for months, if then.

DHEC also declined to tighten regulations on sewer sludge this year after hearing complaints from utility officials and some farmers.

Meanwhile, farms in virtually every region of South Carolina are approved to accept sludge, with the heaviest use of the material in the Broad and Catawba river basins of the Upstate and the Pee Dee basin in eastern South Carolina, the news organizations learned.

More than 350 public wells and 18 surface water intake pipes, which feed communities’ water systems, are a couple miles from sludge sites, according to records reviewed by The State newspaper and McClatchy.

Other sludge fields are close to rivers and streams that state regulators have identified as polluted with forever chemicals at levels above the proposed federal limit, according to DHEC’s Watershed Atlas and an agency atlas of places where forever chemicals have been found.

In perhaps the state’s most startling PFAS contamination case, federal regulators suspect sludge played a role in tainting wells that provide water for some Darlington County residents. Some community members are ill and feeling duped by a now closed textile plant, Galey and Lord, that provided the fertilizer and by DHEC for approving its use.

Residents in other communities are also raising alarms about what they say is South Carolina’s weak response to PFAS in drinking water and the newfound threat of sludge fields.

“I’m concerned and scared, and also mad because nothing is being done about it right now,’’ said Michele Ruff who lives in Whitmire, a Newberry County town where forever chemicals have been found in the water at levels above the proposed limit.

Whitmire utility official Kenny Weaver said that “as far as we know, there is no problem’’ with forever chemicals in drinking water, despite the elevated levels found in 2020.

While scientists and state regulators have not established a definitive link between PFAS-polluted sludge fields and the state’s rivers, groundwater and drinking water systems, sludge disposal sites are considered a major potential pollution source, state officials say.

“Land application of treated sludge/biosolids is an emerging concern,’’ South Carolina regulators said in a 2021 report on forever chemical pollution.

Pesticides, firefighting foam, mine pollution and direct discharges from industrial plants are among other suspected sources.

But DHEC has reason to believe agricultural fields relying on sludge “could contain PFAS’’ from wastewater treatment plants, one agency report says.

From the fields, the water-loving contaminants can wash into rivers and lakes or seep into groundwater, research shows.

A total of 91 industries and domestic sewage plants have been permitted through the years to spread sludge onto the landscape, according to DHEC. About one third of those are industrial wastewater facilities, with most of the rest municipal and domestic plants, the agency said in an email to The State. The number of fields used by each of those facilities ranges from one to hundreds, the department said.

Under state and federal law, wastewater plants must remove certain pollutants from sludge. But that treatment process doesn’t filter out forever chemicals, a class of compounds used widely across the country in consumer products, such as non-stick frying pans, stain resistant carpets, firefighting foam and waterproof clothing.

In the past 20 years, information has surfaced showing that forever chemicals can cause certain types of cancer, immune system deficiencies, thyroid problems and an array of other health defects. Those regularly exposed to forever chemicals can experience elevated PFAS-levels in their blood for years, increasing chances that illnesses could result.

Threats from PFAS were kept out of the public eye for years by manufacturers. Forever chemical producers knew by the 1970s that the chemicals were toxic, some four decades before the public health community knew, according to a just completed study by university researchers in California and Colorado. Major manufacturers, Dupont and 3M, have recently settled court cases for billions of dollars over PFAS water contamination.

The most likely way people are exposed to PFAS is by drinking water or eating food contaminated with the hazardous compounds, but inhalation is another route of exposure.

PFAS exposure over time can increase the risk of high blood pressure, cholesterol levels, thyroid disease, and ulcerative colitis.

It can also increase the risk of kidney, breast, and testicular cancers. Furthermore, PFAS exposure has been linked with lowered effectiveness of vaccine responses in children, decreased infant growth, and decreased antibody responses that help fight off disease.

Despite PFAS being found in South Carolina rivers and groundwater near sludge sites, The State newspaper could not find evidence that anyone is systematically testing for PFAS pollution on farmland to determine if food crops are being contaminated by sludge.

Forever chemicals have been found in cows’ milk in other states, and a handful of government tests in Darlington County about four years ago discovered PFAS in the soil of farmland, years after a textile plant had deposited sludge on the land.

Meanwhile, two South Carolina utilities, which are among the state’s largest sludge providers, told The State they’ve found forever chemicals in wastewater plant sludge during tests in recent years. Charlotte Water, which provides water and sewer for that city, and Renewable Water Resources, which treats wastewater for greater Greenville, downplayed the potential risk of the forever chemicals found in sludge. Both utilities said they are continuing to investigate.

Discoveries of PFAS in South Carolina sludge support the findings of a December 2021 report by AECOM, a national consulting firm, that documented PFAS in 80 percent of the treated solids from selected wastewater plants across the country.

“These human-made chemicals are expected to be detected for decades in the environment,’’ the AECOM report said.

Sludge fields and polluted water

Tests in other states indicate that sludge fields are contributing to water pollution, including North Carolina.

In one 2016 report, high levels of PFOA and PFOS showed up below sludge fields in a creek in the Cape Fear River basin. There were no other apparent sources of the forever chemical pollution, according to the report by Waterkeepers Carolina. Similar findings were reported in creeks that flowed into a major drinking water source near Chapel Hill.

In South Carolina, The State newspaper and McClatchy found communities where sludge fields were close to rivers, groundwater and drinking water plants that have registered PFAS levels above the safe drinking water standard of four parts per trillion.

Those drinking water plants include facilities run by Grand Strand Water and Sewer Authority near Myrtle Beach, small utilities in the Upstate counties of Cherokee, Laurens, Newberry and Union and a small utility in Chesterfield County in eastern South Carolina. The Charleston Water System’s secondary intake on the Edisto River also is among those.

Collectively, the utilities serve more than 700,000 customers.

Forever chemicals have been shown to travel substantial distances in rivers. In coastal North Carolina, for instance, forever chemical pollution has been documented in a waterway about 50 miles away from the source, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Public data reviewed by McClatchy and The State revealed that:

• In Laurens County, more than 25 agricultural sites where sludge is approved for use are bunched together along the Enoree River and a major tributary, less than 10 miles upstream from Clinton’s drinking water intake pipe. The tributary has registered some of the state’s highest PFAS levels and Clinton has registered some of the state’s highest levels in drinking water for systems fed by rivers.

• In Newberry and Union counties, 10 sites where sludge is applied are within six miles of the town of Whitmire’s water intake pipe on the Enoree River northwest of Columbia. Whitmire’s drinking water contained forever chemicals above the proposed federal limit.

• In Georgetown and Horry counties, a dozen sludge and wastewater sites are above Grand Strand Water and Sewer Authority’s Bull Creek drinking water intake pipe, with most of the fields within two miles of it. Tests in recent years show the Bull Creek plant has had some of the highest levels of several types of PFAS of any water system fed by a river.

• In Cherokee County, 16 sludge sites are within five miles of an intake pipe for Lake Whelchel, the Gaffney Board of Public Works’ main drinking water source. Sludge sites above Lake Whelchel are used by the Gaffney public works utility. The utility has a secondary intake on the Broad River. Gaffney’s drinking water posted the state’s highest levels of PFAS for river-fed water systems in 2020.

• In Chester County, DHEC found forever chemicals at levels above the federal standard at a point in Fishing Creek within six miles of sludge fields. There are no major drinking water sources along the creek, but smaller systems and multiple private wells exist.

In addition, problems in Darlington County are of growing concern. Federal officials have found high levels of forever chemicals in a string of private wells on and near about 10,000 acres of farm fields where DHEC approved spreading textile plant sludge from 1993 to 2013.

Tested fields showed PFAS in the soil years after sludge was applied. The farm soil and wells contained forever chemicals like those found in the sludge at the nearby Galey and Lord textile plant, according to EPA and DHEC records. The EPA also found streams polluted with PFAS.

“Green fantasy’’

Sewer sludge has for decades been used on farm fields nationally, pitched by utilities and industrial plants — with support from state and federal agencies — as a low-cost way to fertilize and irrigate the land while disposing of waste they generate.

Filled with nutrients that make crops grow, sludge sometimes draws complaints from people near farm fields because it can carry nauseating odors.

But more importantly, sludge is suspected of containing hundreds of unregulated contaminants, most notably forever chemicals. In 2018, an EPA inspector general’s report said the agency found 352 unregulated contaminants in sewer sludge.

“I never, ever thought that land application for most waste was a good idea,’’ said consultant Ken Norcross, a national expert on sewage plants who has advised attorneys in court cases about wastewater systems.

Norcross calls the use of sludge to fertilize fields “a green fantasy.’’

Because of concerns about PFAS, some states, such as Michigan, have prohibited putting sludge on agricultural fields if tests show high PFAS levels in the waste material.

Maine has taken more drastic steps, with an outright ban on spreading sewer sludge on farm fields.

Maine’s action followed revelations that farms, drinking water, milk and cattle have been tainted by PFAS in areas where sludge was spread. Sludge containing forever chemicals poisoned wells near a dozen farms, forcing some of them to shut down, The Guardian reported last year.

Adam Nordell, a one-time organic vegetable farmer from Maine, told The State that PFAS is still contaminating his farm some 30 years after a previous landowner used sludge on the property.

Nordell, who said he did not know about the PFAS threat when he purchased the farmland, said he has registered elevated levels of forever chemicals in his blood that may not go away for decades. Groundwater beneath the farm is contaminated with PFAS, he said.

“We are trying to avoid poisoning ourselves, now that we know the degree of our exposure,’’ Nordell said. “Our farm is shut down. We are waiting hopefully for a responsible pathway to get out from under the property.’’

Farmers at odds in SC

Those who market and use sludge, often called biosolids, say they are unconvinced that PFAS in sludge fields is a widespread threat.

“Our view is that with the typical municipal biosolids, we do not think there are any risks that warrant limiting the practice,’’ said Paul Calamita, an attorney with the S.C. Water Quality Association, a group of wastewater utilities, local governments and engineering firms.

Others in the state’s agriculture community offer practical reasons for spreading the product on their land.

Kershaw County farmer Wayne Belger said the material enriches the soil without costing much money.

“At the end of the day, as a farmer, when I look at sludge, (it is) the nutrients that’s available to grow our crops with,’’ Belger said during a meeting with DHEC last year. “It’s sustainable. It’s been around and it works.’’

Efforts by DHEC to regulate forever chemicals in sewer sludge failed last year after utilities and some farmers complained at the meeting at which Belger spoke.

Belger, a member of the state Agriculture Commission board, said sludge is cheaper than store-bought fertilizer. He said he’s had no indication that the sludge he gets from chicken processing plants contains PFAS.

“Fertilizer this year alone has gone up over 200 percent from what it was a year ago,’’ Belger said during the 2022 DHEC meeting.

But those cost savings may come at a health cost unbeknownst to farmers, warn a growing number of reports, including the 2016 one by Waterkeepers Carolina, an environmental organization.

“In reality, the material is contaminated, including many chemicals that the generators have yet to identify, let alone establish safe limits,’’ the group’s report on sludge reads.

Perplexed utilities

Although the potential link between sludge fields and drinking water pollution remains under investigation, local officials say they want DHEC to determine how PFAS is getting into their water supplies and provide guidance on what they should do about it.

Brison Taylor, the city of Clinton’s utilities director, said the town suspects forever chemical pollution affecting its drinking water is coming from industrial plants upstream. Aerial imagery, reviewed by The State newspaper, also shows a mine in the area.

Angie Price, an official with Renewable Water Resources, declined to say whether she thinks the utility’s sludge has impacted Clinton’s drinking water. The type of PFAS found recently at elevated levels in utility sewer sludge was not the same kind found in high levels in Warrior Creek, upstream from the Clinton water pipe, she said.

The utility has not tested soil at sites where sludge has been applied through the years. Its program has been underway for 25 years.

Price said the utility has tested at 19 of the 100 industrial plants that send their waste to Renewable Water, finding PFAS at different levels in about half of them. She declined to name the industrial plants because Renewable Water’s research is still underway. It’s part of a strategy to shut off PFAS pollution at its source, she said.

“Source control is the solution to this,’’ she said.

Long-term danger

DHEC is now trying to determine the number of farms and other locations with sludge permits that actually spread the goop on their fields and for how long.

The 80,000 acres are only those places currently known by DHEC. Other spots that no longer are permitted, or which never have been permitted, represent an ongoing threat. PFAS can persist in the environment for many years, said Cunningham, who has worked with Darlington County property owners worried about PFAS pollution in their wells.

Forever chemicals build up in the environment, do not go away quickly and can disperse widely in waterways, said Cunningham and Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stangler.

“It’s not just that number of acres,’’ Cunningham said. “It is the number of acres times how many years this has been going on. The multiplication is kind of enormous.’’

Those concerns are part of the reason some wastewater utilities are not comfortable spreading sludge on the landscape. Statewide, about one-third of the sludge generated is spread on the land. Most of the rest is sent to landfills, according to a 2018 report by the National Biosolids Research Project.

Clint Shealy, Columbia’s assistant city manager over utilities, said the city had been moving toward a land application program for sewer sludge as a cheaper alternative to using a landfill. That push is on hold because forever chemicals “have given us a reason for pause,’’ Shealy said.

“Had we started this process 10 years ago, we would probably be land applying before anybody could spell PFAS,’’ he said. “Now that we know ... about the potential (hazard), we want to see where this is headed before we invest further.’’

Among the possibilities:

• State lawmakers could enact rules to prevent sludge containing PFAS from being spread on land, or at least limiting the amount of forever chemicals in the sludge.

• The federal or state government could require wastewater utilities to destroy PFAS that flows through wastewater plants, if an approved method can be found.

• The federal or state government could require drinking water plants to begin the costly effort of installing equipment to filter out PFAS that flows into them from rivers or groundwater.

• People who get water from private wells or who are concerned about PFAS in public water could install their own filtering systems. The EPA offers recommendations here.

Methodology

The State and McClatchy in collaboration identified areas of South Carolina where there is a high concentration of sludge sites nearby sources of drinking water with measured hazardous levels of PFOA or PFOS using data from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). Defining a two mile spatial buffer around the DHEC permitted site locations for Sludge-A and Sludge-B, we were able to identify potentially affected drinking water intake locations for public utilities and public water supply well locations.

In addition, we estimated 1.9 million people in the state may be affected by community drinking water systems with measured PFOA or PFOS over four parts per trillion by combining PFAS measuring data by DHEC and data that was provided to DHEC by local drinking water utilities.

Sources

Data: The State/McClatchy analysis, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), Darlington County Water & Sewer Authority

Map Imagery: USGS, OpenStreetMap

Acknowledgements

Gina Smith | Editor

Joshua Boucher and Tracy Glantz | Photography and video

Rachel Handley and Sohail Al-Jamea | Illustration, animation and video

Gabby McCall | Logo design

David Newcomb | Development