There have been unprecedented disruptions and the food supply chain as of late starting in “no plant ’19” and continuing right up to the present day. We have seen low yields; we have also seen missing pesticides and herbicides from the market due to supply chain disruption and we have seen shortages of fertilizer. We have seen 20 different food processing plants mysteriously go up in flames, get hit by an airplane, or have their boiler explode all within the first four months of 2022 for these processing plants. We have seen bird flu wipeout 27 million birds and counting. It’s a miracle we still get food in the grocery stores at this point. Now we’re seeing that state officials in Maine are just declaring farms unsafe.
The Maine Department of Environmental protection on Friday highlighted 34 towns, their staff would be looking for contamination of what has been dubbed forever chemicals. This testing is part of a multiyear long plan targeting sites where sludge, septic tank sewage, and industrial waste was spread as fertilizer. They plan to test over 700 sites that they believe may be contaminated with PSAS. These chemicals have been used in your house for decades for things like nonstick pans or stain resistant carpets.
Patrick MacRoy, who is the deputy director of a group called Defend our Health said that the Department of Environmental Protection in Maine is “doing a good job” by at least trying to identify and test high risk sites. However, MacRoy wants the department to put active farms at the top of that list.
He wants farms at the top of the list when we have a shortage of supply of chemicals to make farming possible, when supply chain disruptions, such as processing plants going up in flames, are reducing our ability to feed ourselves, and when we have millions of birds with the bird flu. Can Patrick MacRoy read the room?
These 34 towns that are on the priority list to test are from small communities that are rural to cities like Westbrook. How they got on that list is that they received at least 10,000 cubic yards of sludge that was likely to contain PFAS. Authorities don’t even know if it actually does contain it or did contain it? An additional factor is if the 10,000 cubic yards of sludge was within 1/2 mile of a home. The same homes that have non-stick pans and stain resistant carpets which supposedly have these forever chemicals impregnated inside of them and are legal to own. You can go buy a nonstick pan at Walmart anywhere, but they’re going to shut down a farm if it has the same chemical within a half mile of a home.
The Department of Environmental protection in Maine reviewed decades of licenses and sub sludge application records to compile this list.
“Each site typically includes multiple locations or ‘fields’ and may also cross district, town, and even county boundaries,” the DEP wrote Friday in a bulletin to members of the Legislature on the Tier 1 sites and statewide investigation. “Some sites may have also been used by multiple generators meaning that sludge from several different sources was sometimes land applied at the same site.”
When they say that the sludge was sometimes land applied at the same site, this means that bio sludge or manure was taken from animals and/or humans, processed, and then spread as fertilizer. This means that any PFAS chemicals that would be in that sludge in particular, would have had to go through a human or an animal first. First of all, if these chemicals are so dangerous, why are they still on the market? And if these chemicals are so dangerous that farms have to be shut down, why are the farmers taking the brunt of this? The farm is the basis of civilization. Without the farm you have nothing.
This investigation was expanded due to 191 wells or other public water sources having PFAS levels above the 20 parts per trillion standard that the state just recently adopted. The state has installed 125 water filters for businesses and homes that tested above that new state standard. It is unclear if farmers will be compensated for their land and their livelihoods should the state shut them down. It is even further unclear how Maine intends to feed itself with less farms.