- [Anna] Coming up on a special edition of Impact.

- We know this stuff's a poison.

There is no safe level.

- This is your results.

- Wow.

- [Anna] Montana PBS investigates dangerous chemicals in fertilizers and composts.

That's next on Impact.

(light music) - [Announcer] Production of Impact is made possible with support from the Otto Bremer Trust, investing in people, places, and opportunities in our region.

Online at ottobremer.org.

The Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

And viewers like you who are friends of Montana PBS, thank you.

- Welcome to a special investigative episode of Impact.

I'm Anna Rau.

Fertilizers and composts are the bedrock of healthy soil, but some critics say one particular type of widely used fertilizer could be putting that soil and our health at risk.

68-year-old East Helena farmer and rancher, Mark Diehl, has worked these acres ever since he could walk.

And it was pretty much a foregone conclusion by the time he was 18 that he would keep doing it for the rest of his life.

- [Mark] I really don't have any soul ties to the land, but I do feel responsibility to take care of it and to protect my grandparents' legacy.

They came with nothing and then just worked their little tails off.

- [Anna] So Diehl stayed put, raised three daughters and two sons, and works hard every day.

- [Mark] I figured, you know, as long as people are eating, I'll probably have a job.

- [Anna] The feed he grows and the cattle he raises on that feed are all enhanced by a special fertilizer his family began using 44 years ago.

(engine rumbling) Every summer, the City of Helena has sprayed or injected Mark Diehl's farm fields with thousands of gallons of treated human waste, also known as sludge or biosolids.

- Well, pretty much nobody wanted to take it.

I mean, we were the only ones that were willing to take it.

- [Anna] Diehl says once you get past the knee-jerk ick factor, it's easy to see the benefit of using human waste, just like you would use animal manure.

- We're kind of plumbed like cattle and pigs and horses.

I mean, things go in this end.

Things come out the other end, and they're beneficial.

They have nutrients.

- It's a really beneficial situation for both of us.

They don't have to then purchase fertilizer, and we don't have to have to take it and dispose of it at the landfill.

- [Anna] Leah Anderson is the City of Helena's environmental regulation pre-treatment manager.

- The liquids spend about four days in here.

The solids, they spend 45 days in the digesters.

- [Anna] She says, thanks to the Diehl family, Helena has diverted roughly 200,000 gallons of biosolids from the landfill over the years.

- Is there any other place that the city has land applied?

- Nope.

We've applied there and only there since the 1980s.

- [Anna] The Diehl Ranch may be the only place Helena applies its biosolids, but Mark Diehl is not alone.

According to the Biosolids Data Project, 46% of all biosolids produced in Montana in 2018 were applied to farm fields and ranches.

- They have to get rid of it.

I mean, because we just keep making more.

So if we can spread it across the ground and actually get a return from that, it's certainly a win for the city of Helena.

- [Anna] Not every community has a Diehl family or a farm to spray its biosolids on.

In Missoula, the wastewater treatment plant has been sending its treated sludge up a conveyor belt and over a wall to a private composting plant, called Eco Compost, since the 1970s.

It was such a great arrangement that the city made a bold move in 2017.

- The owner was fixing to sell and approached the city.

By buying off the facility, we were able to control our market and be able to essentially fund ourselves by selling the compost.

- [Anna] Jason Duffin worked for Eco Compost back when it was a private company, and now he's the plant manager for the city-owned entity called Garden City Compost.

Missoulians drop off their yard waste, tree trimmings, and leaves to be mixed with the biosolids and cooked into compost.

Duffin says last year the composting facility kept 15,000 tons of yard waste and 2000 tons of treated sludge from going to the landfill.

And in return?

- Here's our finished product with all the good wood chips in there and organics.

People use our compost on golf courses, parks, schools around town, gardens, mine reclamation, stuff like that, and DOT projects.

Pretty much anywhere you can think of.

- [Anna] Garden City Compost is sold in bulk right at the plant, so backyard gardeners know exactly what's in this compost.

- [Ann] Going to the garden.

- [Anna] For others like longtime state environmentalist Ann Hedges in Helena, she had no idea that biosolids were the secret ingredient that made her garden tomatoes so big.

- [Anna] What do you fertilize your garden with?

- Well, Glacier Gold Compost.

I plant a garden every year.

We've lived here almost 20 years, and it's probably the number one thing that I turn to.

- [Anna] Glacier Gold Compost is sold at garden and home improvement stores across the state, and at first it's hard to figure out it's made from treated sewage from the Kalispell Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The bag is marked organic.

- [Ann] It's organic.

I thought, great.

That's exactly what I wanna put on the food that I'm gonna eat.

- [Anna] The only way you know it's made from treated sludge is the term biosolids on the label.

- Biosolids means nothing to people.

You have to do some Google searching to find out what that means.

- [Anna] Glacier Gold is just one of many biosolids-based composts and fertilizers available in retail stores across the nation.

- When people buy them in the store, bagged fertilizers, they don't actually realize that a lot of those fertilizers are biosolids.

- [Anna] Dr. Linda Lee is a distinguished professor of agronomy at Purdue University, and she's seen firsthand what biosolids can do for farms.

- We have farms here near Purdue where they were doing biosolid studies several decades ago, and you can still see the soil's darker, the plants come up faster.

- [Anna] Across the nation roughly 50% of all treated human waste has been applied to farm fields and ranches and turned into fertilizers and composts since the 1990s.

That's an estimated 90 million tons of biosolids.

- There's been an unprecedented amount of propaganda about sewage sludge, about the safety of biosolids.

- [Anna] Laura Orlando is a senior scientist at Just Zero, a group that promotes clean, zero waste policies.

She's also an adjunct professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, and she's a critic of biosolids.

She says The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has helped lead the push to use biosolids.

- The message has come at the local, regional, state, and federal level that sewage sludge is perfectly safe, even when research was showing that that's not true, - [Anna] Orlando doesn't dispute that there are good nutrients in biosolids.

What she's worried about are the other things lurking in our wastewater.

(water gurgling) - Once I began to learn that the sewer wasn't all about what you flush down the toilet, many more things are attached to the sewer than our homes, which introduces a huge chemical component.

Millions and millions of pounds of chemicals are going into the sewer.

- [Anna] So have you guys ever been concerned about things that might be in it?

- Well, yes, sure.

- [Anna] Those chemicals come from all over a community.

From industry, hospitals, auto repair shops, car washes, leakage from the landfill, fuels, oils, greases.

Anything that's attached to a city sewer system will end up in the wastewater and eventually the sludge.

- That sludge is a waste product, and the cleaner to the water, the dirtier the sludge is gonna be.

And when I say dirty, I'm talking about chemicals, for instance, that will partition to the sludge.

There's certain chemicals that don't like to stay in the water column, and they'll move over to the sludge.

- [Anna] The federal government has always known that chemicals end up in the biosolids.

Since 1988, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified over 720 different chemicals and contaminants in sludge.

61 of those chemicals are already identified as hazardous by the EPA.

Despite this, the agency has yet to issue any new regulations or restrictions on those chemicals in biosolids.

- EPA has dropped the ball on sludge.

There was a Inspector General report that says EPA has no idea what's happening with sludge.

Of the hundreds of chemicals that are known troublemakers for human health, the EPA is not looking at them in sludge.

- [Expert] Often they have both cancer and non-cancer risk assessment, so.

- [Anna] Nearly five years after that scathing OIG report, the EPA finally pulled together a group of independent scientists, seen here meeting remotely to form an advisory board.

Dr. Lee is one of those scientists.

- What's the framework for assessing that data?

- [Anna] The board is testing out a chemical screening tool that will help the EPA zero in on the most concerning chemicals.

- Where's the smoking gun?

Right?

You know, mom got kidney cancer, but what gave her the kidney cancer?

Or dad's got, you know, a thyroid disease, but where did that come from?

And so, the smoking gun, right in this moment is this class of chemicals, PFAS.

- P-F-A-S is supposed to be the acronym for Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances - [Anna] Not to be confused with microplastics, PFAS are a group of entirely manmade chemicals that have permeated our lives since the 1940s.

PFAS started out as coatings on non-stick pans and stain-resistant carpets and fabrics.

They are extremely slippery and they repel water and grease.

They're also extremely strong.

- What are you aware of about PFAS?

- Well, it keeps them eggs from sticking to the bottom of that pan.

It's obviously had some major benefits in our lives.

- [Anna] Today, PFAS are in everything from waterproof jackets and shoes to makeup, food packaging, and even dental floss.

Scientists estimate that there are over 10,000 different PFAS chemicals in the world today.

But all of that convenience has come at a price.

The same qualities that make PFAS strong, waterproof, and grease-proof make it nearly impossible to break down naturally.

- PFAS at best break down into other PFAS.

So they've gotten coined the term forever chemicals because they don't go away.

- You already have that persistence.

Then you add more and you add more, and you add more, which is what happens in sludged fields.

So now you've got a lot of it not going away, and so it's really, really, really frightening for that reason.

- Even more frightening, PFAS appear to be very dangerous to human health.

- They negatively impact our immune system, our reproductive system, our endocrine system.

They can result in ulcerative colitis, thyroid problems, different cancers.

- Depending on the study you look at, there's a suite of different adverse effects that can happen.

- [Anna] The EPA believes even extremely small concentrations could be enough to harm human health.

That's because scientists have discovered that PFAS persist in the human body for a long time.

In humans, PFAS have a half life of six to seven years.

That means whatever level you have in your body now will only drop by half in six years.

- One of the things that's not controversial about PFAS is that they cause harm to human health at any concentration.

So we have the EPA saying for drinking water, the maximum contaminant level goal is zero.

- [Anna] That's right.

The EPA would like to find zero PFAS in all drinking water.

But since PFAS are so ubiquitous, the agency has proposed a more realistic standard of just four parts per trillion.

- So four parts per trillion is like, as an example, it's a postage stamp in Texas.

- [Anna] Anderson says Helena's drinking water tested negative for PFAS, but it's likely still ending up in the city's wastewater through the sewers.

The Montana Department of Environmental Quality tested Prickly Pear Creek where the Helena Wastewater Plant discharges, and they found 28 parts per trillion of PFAS.

- There was a study in 2013 that showed approximately 1,000 pounds of PFAS were going into the U.S. sewer systems.

- [Anna] And this brings us back to biosolids.

Remember how PFAS repels water?

That same quality makes much of the PFAS in wastewater move away from the liquid and into the solids.

- That's why we can always find PFAS in sewage sludge, and we find it in high concentrations.

- [Anna] And a community doesn't even need an industrial producer of PFAS to contaminate wastewater with relatively high concentrations of the chemicals.

The local landfill, where all of our PFAS coated products end up, can be a major source of PFAS contamination.

- When it rains, that precipitation moves through the landfill and that leachate is collected and the leachate reliably will have PFAS in it in very, very high concentrations of PFAS.

And guess where that landfill leachate goes?

It goes to a wastewater treatment plant.

- What about leachate from the landfill?

- Yeah, we do collect and receive the leachate from Missoula's landfill.

- Gene Connell is the superintendent of Missoula's wastewater treatment plant.

He says the company that runs the landfill pays the city to take the leachate.

- Have you guys tested the leachate to see what's coming out of the- - We have.

- [Anna] And what did you find there?

- That is a source.

- Is it a high source?

- Not an alarmingly high source.

- [Anna] The City of Missoula provided Montana PBS with their test results.

They show total PFAS concentrations for the landfill leachate at 2,351 parts per trillion.

One PFAS chemical alone tested at 750 parts per trillion.

- What's considered a high level?

- You know, honestly, I, off the top of my head, I'm not able to crank out those numbers.

- [Anna] That's because there really are no numbers to reference.

While the EPA is looking at a drinking water standard of four parts per trillion, PFAS regulation is such an emerging area that there are no limits on landfill leachate yet.

But the City of Missoula also tested the basic wastewater coming into the plant minus the landfill leachate.

Those results show a total concentration of just 16 parts per trillion.

Remember, the leachate concentration was 2,351 parts per trillion.

The results are clear.

In Missoula, most of the PFAS flowing into the treatment plant are coming from the landfill.

So we know PFAS is coming into these treatment plants in Missoula and Helena, but is it concentrating here in Garden City's finished compost?

Is PFAS showing up here in Anne Hedges' Helena garden, where she unwittingly used bagged biosolids compost for two decades?

And is it here in East Helena on Mark Diehl's family farm and ranch, where the city's biosolids have been applied for 44 years?

- [Anna] Would you let us test your soil?

- Sure.

- [Anna] And then give you the results?

- Yeah.

I've never been one to stick my head in the sand and just hope for the best.

- [Anna] Montana PBS tested a composite of the soil from the Diehl farm, a composite from Hedges' backyard garden, and three different composts.

Garden City Compost, Glacier Gold Compost, and a control compost that does not contain any biosolids.

We hired an EPA certified lab that uses a method that can find 28 different PFAS.

We followed the testing protocols.

We wore the gloves.

We used stainless steel utensils, and lab-supplied PFAS-free testing cups.

We filled out the chain of custody form, and kept the samples the correct temperature for shipping.

Then we waited.

- [Anna] What do you think you would wanna know out of this?

- Well, I guess I'd like to know if any of those PFAS or whatever are present and to what level.

- What are you expecting to see?

What do you think you'll see in the results?

- I'm an optimistic person.

I'm hopeful that there's really nothing bad in my garden.

- [Anna] Two weeks later, the results were back.

- These are your ranch results.

So I highlighted where they found PFAS.

These are parts per billion.

- [Anna] The results for solids are reported on a parts per billion basis, but we converted all the numbers to parts per trillion in order to match the drinking water measurements the EPA is using.

On the Diehl ranch, the test found a total PFAS concentration of nearly 28,000 parts per trillion.

One particular PFAS called PFOS was found at a concentration of 15,000 parts per trillion - 15, that looks like it's high, but I don't know what that means.

- Nobody does right now.

Nobody does.

- And it's like, you know, you can't really make a solid determination on these figures because you don't know the effect it has.

- [Anna] While there are no federal standards for PFAS in soil yet, the State of Maine has set a screening level for PFOS that would warrant further investigation at 5,200 parts per trillion.

The concentration on the Diehl ranch is nearly three times that.

In Connecticut, farmers have been advised not to put any biosolids on their fields that exceed a total PFAS concentration of 1,400 parts per trillion.

All these advisories and recommendations are in place while scientists try to figure out if PFAS in our soil actually present a danger to humans and their environment.

- If it doesn't make it to the wheat kernel, I'm not really sure that it matters much.

If it isn't part of the food chain, then do we really have to worry about it other than it being in the soil and there's very few of us running around eating a handful full of dirt.

- No, we're not necessarily eating the soil, but we're eating the things grown in it.

- [Anna] Orlando says studies are showing that some plants do take up the PFAS in the soil, especially leafy greens like kale and feedstock like alfalfa.

When cattle eat PFAS-contaminated food, the chemicals do end up in the meat and the milk.

On top of all of this, there's growing concern that wind across a farm field can easily suspend the PFAS in the dust and repeatedly expose farmers and their families.

Given all this, Orlando believes any future soil standard should be set very low, similar to the proposed drinking water standard of four parts per trillion.

- The drinking water limits alert us to the harm caused by this class of chemicals at very, very low concentrations.

We can spend decades arguing about whether we should have one part per billion or 1,000 parts per billion in our soil or in our plants or in our food.

Meanwhile, there's the reliable benchmark that zero is the proper number.

- [Anna] What about the compost Hedges has been mixing into her home garden and growing her vegetables in?

Our sample of Glacier Gold showed total PFAS concentrations of nearly 51,000 parts per trillion.

- Wow.

- [Anna] In the compost.

- In the organic compost.

- [Anna] The lab found 14 of the 28 PFAS chemicals it looked for in the Glacier Gold sample.

- That's just unbelievable.

- Again, it's one snapshot, one time.

- It's a snapshot, but what it tells you is we need, and the consumer deserves, more information.

- [Anna] Montana PBS reached out to the owner of Glacier Gold Compost for this documentary, but received no response.

- Would you like to see your garden results now?

- Yes.

I think, I'm not sure.

- [Anna] The tests showed a total concentration of more than 8,000 parts per trillion.

That number exceeds the recommended sludge application limit for the State of Connecticut.

One PFAS alone, PFOS, was found at 4,200 parts per trillion.

That makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it?

- Yeah, it does.

It definitely makes me uncomfortable.

- How concerning are these numbers to you?

- Concerning enough that I'm gonna do something about it.

Concerning enough that I'm gonna stop using that product and I'm gonna search for products that aren't using biosolids.

Concerning enough that I'm gonna argue that the Department of Environmental Quality should be doing a better job of protecting the public and our resources from this.

- [Anna] The Montana Department of Environmental Quality declined to interview for this documentary, saying the EPA is the agency that regulates pollutants in biosolids.

- This is the test our DEQ should have done, and they should have brought this to the legislature and they should have asked the legislature to set limits.

- [Anna] But the highest PFAS test results came from Missoula's Garden City Compost.

I actually took a sample.

- Nice.

- Of Garden City Compost and sent it to a lab.

- Awesome.

- [Anna] Would you be interested to know the results?

- Sure.

- [Anna] Our test showed a total PFAS concentration of nearly 59,000 parts per trillion.

The lab found 17 of the 28 different PFAS it looked for.

One PFAS chemical alone had a concentration of 18,000 parts per trillion.

- We'll be sampling some more, 'cause we wanna do everything we can to make sure our product's safe.

I wish we would've looked at that sheet and not seen anything on there.

That'd be great.

But you'd have to stop being a part of society to get away from PFAS.

- [Anna] PFAS is indeed everywhere.

For proof of that look no further than the results from our control compost.

The total concentration was 3,000 parts per trillion, and the lab found 3 of the 28 PFAS chemicals we tested for.

Unfortunately, there are thousands more PFAS in our environment.

Wastewater treatment plants were never equipped to deal with these chemicals, and they can only do so much when the PFAS keeps flowing in.

- Let's stop making this stuff.

You know, we really, really need to turn off the spigot.

When the bathtub's filling up, you can get a lot of mops and clean up the floor, but the best thing to do is, you know, turn off the faucet.

- So have you talked to Allied Waste about possible pretreatment of the leachate to remove PFAS?

- Not at this point.

- Okay.

'Cause and does anybody know?

Have we costed out any of this?

- No.

No.

Even the technology that could possibly be used is still being researched.

- [Anna] While utilities grapple with the PFAS problem and the EPA lumbers towards setting limits, there is tremendous disagreement about continuing to use biosolids as a fertilizer.

- We don't have to spread a poison like sewage sludge all over our farmland.

We don't have to bag it and sell it to unsuspecting people at the hardware store.

We could stop this practice right now.

- I don't think it would ever be a good idea to get biosolids or biosolids compost out of our environment because of how much good and how much carbon it helps sequester, how much organics it puts back into the soil.

It would affect our country greatly if we weren't able to use compost and biosolids.

- You know, it'd be easy enough to say, well, you can't put it on our property anymore, I guess, but that isn't really, I don't see that as being the best solution.

- Instead, Mark Diehl and his family want to know more.

They want to test their wells, their cattle, and their produce, even though knowing the truth could put their livelihood in jeopardy.

Advocates are trying to create a national safety net for farmers and ranchers affected by PFAS contamination.

Meanwhile, the EPA has taken steps to designate PFAS as hazardous waste, but it's unclear when the agency will set limits in biosolids and soil.

Thanks for joining us for this special investigation.

I'm Anna Rau.

We'll see you next time.

(light music) (light music) (light music) - [Announcer] Production of Impact is made possible with support from the Otto Bremer Trust, investing in people, places, and opportunities in our region.

Online at ottobremer.org.

The Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

And viewers like you who are friends of Montana PBS, thank you.

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