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Senator Brenner, Representative Tucker, and honorable members of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee. My name is Sharon Treat and I live in Hallowell. I am Senior Attorney for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), on whose behalf I am testifying today in support of LD 780, “An Act Regarding Uncontrolled Hazardous Substance Sites”.
IATP is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota with offices in Hallowell, Maine and other locations. As an organization that works closely with farmers and seeks to promote local, sustainable and environmentally beneficial agriculture, IATP is particularly interested in how PFAS contamination is affecting food, farms and farmers.
We testified in support of similar legislation last session, and we again urge the committee to support this bill, which incorporates committee amendments designed to address concerns from publicly owned treatment works and water systems. We’ve lost an entire year due to the pandemic, which halted action on this and other critically important PFAS legislation. LD 780 provides an important tool, by allowing the State to classify PFAS compounds and other emerging contaminants as hazardous substances under the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)’s Uncontrolled Sites Program, thereby granting the State clear legal authority and freeing up funds to clean up and remediate contamination. Passing LD 780 will enable the State to act quickly to protect the public and environment.
The scope of the PFAS contamination problem in Maine could be enormous, and there is a high probability that many more uncontrolled sites with PFAS pollution will be found as investigations continue.
A year ago in my testimony I suggested that the significant ongoing contamination of Stoneridge Farm in Arundel likely wasn’t an anomaly. Unfortunately, I was right. Now a second farm, the Tozier farm in Fairfield, cannot sell its milk due to PFAS contamination, and several dozen neighbors’ wells are also polluted with sky-high PFAS levels. Data collected by DEP has identified 500 properties where sludge was spread over the past 40 years, but testing at most of those sites is yet to be done. What contamination will be found in the groundwater and soils near these sites, once they are tested?
Hundreds of landfills are also likely continuing sources of PFAS pollution. DEP groundwater test results topped out at an astounding 3,050 ng/l for PFOA, 2700 ng/l for PFOS and 3095.1 ng/l for combined PFOA + PFOS. Even the average groundwater sample, out of about 46 samples for this category, found levels of 407.3 ng/l for PFOA, 204.1 ng/1 for PFOS and 587 ng/l for combined PFOA + PFOS. In its tests of drinking water wells near landfills (116 samples), DEP found maximum levels of 458 ng/l for PFOA, 120 ng/l for PFOS and 470 ng/l for combined PFOA + PFOS. Average results were also high; 46.0 ng/l for PFOA, 13.5 ng/l for PFOS and 52.5 ng/l for combined PFOA + PFOS. These measurements are far above safe levels for human consumption.
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