Farm-spread sludge from wastewater plants and factories is a main source of 'forever chemicals' in South Carolina water

Sludge-spreading sites and wells with "forever chemicals" are marked on this satellite image, part of the multimedia package with The State newspaper's story. The image shows part of Darlington County, South Carolina.

The spreading of wastewater sludge on farms is a main suspected source of toxic "forever chemicals" found in streams across South Carolina, says the state government that allowed tens of thousands of acres to be unknowingly contaminated, Sammy Fretwell reports for The State newspaper in Columbia.

“It’s sad. We didn’t know what we were doing to the ground,’’ farmer Robbie O’Neal said of the sludge spreading program his family once relied on. “We were told it was supposed to be good, supposed to be nothing wrong with it. It wasn’t supposed to hurt anything. . . . It has leached into our drinking water and poisoned us.’

Fretwell reports, "More than 3,500 farm fields have been approved to receive sludge. Sewage plants, factories and other types of industrial facilities were approved to spread sludge and wastewater. Now, increasing evidence shows that some sludge contains chemicals with a toxic punch called per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The class of toxic compounds has only in recent years become widely known to the public. Commonly called forever chemicals, the material is of such concern that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a strict drinking water limit of 4 parts per trillion on some types of the chemicals. Forever chemicals got their name because they do not break down easily in the environment, meaning they can pollute the earth, rivers and groundwater for decades."

For decades, a now-closed textile factory persuaded farmers to use the sludge as fertilizer. In 2019, the government found those chemicals in the drinking water of those farmers and their neighbors, and "All of them lived and worked in areas where farmers had used sludge from the Galey and Lord textile plant. And many of the wells they drank from were polluted with the same chemicals being found in sludge at the factory several miles away. . . . The chemicals are showing up in almost every river tested in the Palmetto State, often at levels above the proposed federal drinking water standard."