“They’re in everything:” Massachusetts lawmakers explore solutions to forever chemicals
As the risk of toxic forever chemicals grows, a handful of Massachusetts legislators and advocates are looking for solutions to the complex problem.
Last week, a group of Massachusetts lawmakers, agency officials, and advocates visited Maine to speak with well owners and farmers who have been impacted by the contamination of forever chemicals and learn more from Maine about how to deal with the problems they create.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or forever chemicals, are widely used, do not break down over time, and can end up in the air, soil, and drinking water. Found in food packaging, household cleaning products, cooking products, cosmetics, firefighting foam and biosolids – human-waste-turned-fertilizer that comes from wastewater treatment plants – PFAS can cause medical problems like decreased fertility, developmental delays and effects in children, and increased risk of some cancers and obesity.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, at least 45% of the nation’s tap drinking water is estimated to have one or more types of PFAS. State data show that at least 171 public water systems in 96 cities in Massachusetts have contaminated water that exceeds the state’s limit.
“Something that we’re really grappling with is the knowledge that these chemicals, they’re in everything, they’re industrial, they’re in municipal wastewater,” said Representative Steve Owens of Watertown, who was a part of the delegation’s trip to Maine.
Maine is one of the leaders in PFAS regulation in the country.
In 2021, Maine was the first state to pass a law banning the sale of products intentionally containing PFAS. Last year, the state lowered the rate of the PFAS allowed from 20 parts per trillion in drinking water to the federal standard of four parts per trillion starting in 2027. The Massachusetts standard is 20 parts per trillion.
Massachusetts leaders hope to understand Maine’s “learned lessons” in handling their PFAS problem, said Senator Jo Comerford of Northampton. She said one of her biggest takeaways from the trip was that Maine farmers asked for PFAS regulation and that their input was crucial in crafting legislation.
“It was important to find out how [Maine] navigated the balance between protecting farmers, protecting the food supply, and protecting public safety,” Owens said.
Forever chemicals are commonly found in everyday products, making it difficult to stop their usage. Maine made exemptions last year to its landmark PFAS legislation to allow certain products to contain the chemicals when their use can’t be avoided, such as lab equipment, medical devices, human and animal medications, and vehicle equipment.
In a statement, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection said that addressing PFAS is a “top priority” for the Healey administration. Last week, Gov. Healey signed a law phasing out the use of forever chemicals in firefighting foam.
In February, Comerford proposed a law that would make farmers immune from lawsuits and civil liability for any damages caused by PFAS found on their farms and establish a fund for farmers who suffered PFAS-related losses. The proposed Agricultural PFAS Relief Fund would allocate money to farmers to test their soil, water, and agricultural products for chemicals and help them with the costs of adopting new standards.
“I believe farmers are not liable at all for this, and we have to be maximally supportive to farmers as one piece of this larger PFAS puzzle,” she said.
Owens also proposed a law earlier this year prohibiting the use and sale of biosolids, a step Maine has taken. Banning biosolids from being used as agricultural fertilizer, Owen notes, would prevent PFAS from being put back into the food chain and from polluting the environment.
While it is a renewable source, Owens claims biosolids can be taken out of the farming process because they are “not as nutrient-rich a source” as organic fertilizer and contribute to PFAS contamination.
Owens’ bill is only one part of the puzzle when it comes to biosolids. If biosolids are not being used as fertilizer, they could end up in landfills, which also adds them back into the environment. Currently, there is no solution for completely eliminating them.
“We want to do our part to reduce how much of this gets into our food supply, and we want to do it in a way that doesn’t punish our farmers for testing it in the first place,” Owens said.
While these bills make their way slowly through the legislative process, forever chemicals continue to contaminate the environment. Legislators say it is an urgent problem, but working quickly to enact new policy may cause its own set of problems.
“Everything has to be planned for, and that was one of the big lessons of Maine,” Comerford said. “Because it’s so important that we get it right.”
In Burlington, Massachusetts, town officials recognized the need for a solution to PFAS in municipal drinking water sources and undertook a project — subsidized by the state — to install filters at the Mill Pond water treatment facility. The filters went online in 2023, and the level of PFAS in the water has been consistently below allowed levels.
The Department of Public Works will soon be replacing the filters, which are still working nearly a year after they were expected to reach end-of-life. They'll also be testing out another filter medium to see if it's more effective and cost-efficient than the one currently in use.
The town's secondary water supply, via the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority, comes from the Quabbin Reservoir and also tests below allowable levels for PFAS.
This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
