This year saw advances in identifying and tackling the damage from forever chemicals in Maine, with policies and research aimed at making products, food and water safer.
From stricter limits on the manmade chemicals in drinking water to alternatives in fast food paper containers, Maine has tried to find ways to undo the damage caused by them, and policymakers and farmers are discovering ways to help contaminated farms stay in business.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are ubiquitous in consumer products from tampons to medicines and sofa fabric. The upside is that they make products waterproof, stain-resistant or non-stick. But they also contaminate the environment through runoff, landfills, fertilizer and pesticides, having already fouled dozens of farms in Maine. And they take a long time, if ever, to break down. Much remains to be known about the chemicals, which number in the thousands.
The Bangor Daily News examined some of the significant advances made with understanding and minimizing the effects of PFAS in Maine in the past year. Here are five highlights.
New drinking water standards
One of the most impactful new regulations in 2024 was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement in June of the first national, enforceable drinking water standard. As a result, Maine will need to cut its maximum allowable level of certain “forever chemicals” in public drinking water fivefold and conduct more water testing.
More than 134,000 Mainers are at risk of drinking water containing certain PFAS chemicals that are over the EPA limit of 4 parts per trillion, which is one-fifth as much as the Maine standard of 20 parts per trillion, according to Portland-based nonprofit Defend Our Health. Maine will have to comply with the national EPA timeline to lower PFAS levels that currently exceed the new standard. Public water systems have until 2029 to do so.
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The new standards are a huge step forward in addressing the public health consequences of the PFAS contamination crisis, said Katherine O’Brien, senior attorney at Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based nonprofit environmental law firm, when the limits were announced.
“Those contaminants are so widespread, and drinking water is a major source of exposure. But it isn’t going to solve the crisis on its own,” said O’Brien, who works in Maine.
Sales prohibitions
Maine was the first state in the nation in 2023 to enact a law requiring manufacturers to stop selling or distributing certain products containing PFAS. It is already in effect for some products, including carpets and fabric treatments, but lawmakers delayed its broader implementation twice. Once was until Jan. 1, 2025 because regulators were understaffed and the rules needed to be clarified. The second time came this year, when businesses pushed back against it.
The Legislature amended the law in 2024 to extend some deadlines, add some protections and create new sales prohibitions for products with intentionally added PFAS. Products with PFAS will now not be allowed to be sold at different deadline dates.
More testing
Regulators and municipalities are testing more waterways and soils to determine whether they contain PFAS and what might be done if they do.
After learning the extent of PFAS in Maine, including at Aroostook’s former Loring Air Force Base, the Central Aroostook Soil & Water District began studying four waterways to find the extent of PFAS contamination and hopefully save County farmers much of the hardship that their central and southern counterparts have endured.
Researchers in Aroostook County said early studies have revealed unsafe levels of PFAS in waterways used for irrigating crops. So far, the chemicals have not disrupted or shut down crop production in Maine’s northernmost county, known for its economically vital potato farming.
More research is planned in 2025 and beyond to learn about the extent of the contamination and whether it has seeped into produce. The findings could have a significant impact on farmers in the County.
Alternatives to PFAS in food packaging
Consumers have gotten used to the benefits that PFAS offer, such as fast-food wrappers or paper dishes that keep food oil from soaking through, prompting research into alternatives. University of Maine at Orono scientists are making progress toward creating grease- and oil-resistant food wraps using highly refined pulp cellulose and seaweed coatings to serve the same purpose, but safely.
The paper industry has already expressed interest in potentially producing PFAS-free coated paper using the university’s work, although commercial production is several years off, Douglas Bousfield, a professor in the University of Maine’s department of chemical and biomedical engineering who is researching new coatings, said in May. A Portland-based start-up, Everything Seaweed, also is developing seaweed-based materials as an eco-friendly replacement for PFAS food packaging coatings.
In February 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said substances containing PFAS used as grease-proofing agents on paper and paperboard that expose people to the chemicals through their diet are no longer being sold by manufacturers into the U.S. market. That adds to the incentive for Maine researchers to look into pulp and seaweed to develop eco-friendly coatings from materials that are abundant and inexpensive in the state.
Finding ways to keep farming
Farmers, legislators and researchers are trying to find ways to keep PFAS-contaminated farms going. Dozens of Maine farms were contaminated by sludge that was spread commonly as fertilizer in the 1990s and 2000s. But most of those farms remain in production, members of the state fund charged with aiding them said in October.
Farmers can use fields for different crops that do not take up the contaminants as readily or plant less resilient crops in fields not treated with forever chemicals, members of the state’s PFAS Fund Advisory Committee said.
“We know certain crops take up more PFAS than others, so land that may not be suitable for one use is perfectly suitable for something else. And not every field was spread with sludge,” Beth Valentine, director of the state’s PFAS Fund, told in-person and online participants in a public comment session in October. “So by screening and evaluating the situation we can get further guidance.”
The committee was established by the Maine Legislature to recommend use of the $60 million it appropriated for commercial farmers affected by PFAS. Since the fund went into effect in March 2024, it has disbursed $2.25 million, mostly as income replacement for farmers. Some 78 Maine farms had soil or water levels of PFAS that registered above a level of concern as of July, although production may continue on them, Valentine said.
Hunter Farm in Unity already has several research projects underway with the University of Maine and Northern Tilth, a Belfast-based company that conducts tests and measures PFAS levels for customers. The projects all focus on using biochar, a wood waste product that holds promise for absorbing and sequestering PFAS in soil, to reduce the uptake of PFAS into crops.
Research results are expected early next year. Meanwhile, Maine’s second biochar factory, Standard Biocarbon in Enfield, went into production in October.
Environment reporter Lori Valigra may be reached at [email protected]. Support for this reporting is provided by the Unity Foundation, a fund at the Maine Community Foundation, and donations by BDN readers.
