Sierra Club concerned after one study finds toxic sludge in Tennessee waters

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — One Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club has spoken out after a study found toxic sludge making its way into Tennessee waterways.

Of greater concern: that sludge could contain harmful chemicals called PFAs. Between non-stick cookware, firefighting foams, and even the coating on fast food wrappers, PFAs are all around us.

“They’re a class of chemicals that have fluorine-carbon bonds that are very durable. As a result, they do not break down in the environment,” Tennessee Sierra Club chair of the solid waste and mining committee, Dan Firth, said. “They’re commonly called ‘forever chemicals.'”

Some studies have suggested those chemicals are also associated with health risks, including immune disorders and certain cancers. The fear is that local water treatment plants may not be able to clear out PFAs that end up in sewage.

“Where some of the wastewater treatment plants were discharging into the surface water, there were significant amounts of PFAs being discharged as well,” Firth said.

Water treatment plants also treat sewage and turn its leftover solids, or “biosolids” into fertilizer. That fertilizer is then used by farmers and landowners to spread across their fields.

“We found extremely high levels of PFAs in the biosolids and in the land where those biosolids had been applied, and in a well that is adjacent to the fields…implying that the application of those biosolids has contaminated the groundwater,” Firth said.

Firth said runoff from fertilized fields has made its way into waterways and meat as animals graze from adjacent fields and drink waters.

“The PFAs gets into the soil — it can be picked up by crops,” Firth said. “Oftentimes, these fields are used for cattle. They leach into the groundwaters and surface waters and those waters are used to water the cattle. As a result they can accumulate in the tissues of the cows, and in some states farms have been shut down.”

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation will hold a meeting on September 5 at 1 p.m. to discuss the permit for land application for biosolids. The public can submit comments until September 20.

That meeting will be open to the public and has a virtual option. Firth told News 2 that he plans to attend the meeting virtually.

“We do not want biosolids land applied when they contain PFAS,” Firth said. “There needs to be provisions in the permit that control and require testing.”

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