Sewer sludge was deodorized and magically turned into fertilizer though full of toxic chemicals. Section 507 wants to magically disappear the EPA draft guidance on sludge. WHY must it be killed?
What the chemical and solid waste industries don't want anyone to know. Here is the draft EPA report.
Taking human wastes, mixing them with everything that can be poured down a sewer, and taking this toxic mix and renaming it BIOSOLIDS that can now be SOLD as fertilizer at garden stores—instead of paying to get rid of it, was a stroke of financial genius.
So we have now had over 30 years of US EPA encouraging the newly renamed Biosolids to be sprayed on farmland, a great way to make the more than 100 million tons produced each year, disappear.
EPA has been pondering its decision ever since, and FINALLY issued a draft report one week before Biden left office.
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2025-01/draft-sewage-sludge-risk-assessment-pfoa-pfos.pdf
This is what the chemical and wastewater industry wants to bury. The Executive Summary tells us that a lot of this witches brew is being applied to land, (mostly farmland) as fertilizer. Some winds up in your garden.
And although 2 of the decidedly harmful PFAS were phased out by manufacturers over 10 years ago, there remains a great deal of them around. They are “forever” chemicals, right? But also, during the wastewater treatment processes, other chemicals can undergo chemical changes, becoming even more virulent PFAS.
The last sentence is the one that doomed this report. It finally admitted, despite decades of fake science performed by those with vested interests, that the stuff is a probably carcinogen.
And so Section 507 was quietly inserted into the 2025 Appropriations bill to make it go away, by making it impossible for any federal agency to use the material in the report:
Pretty simple. Pretty straightforward. Very short and to the point. Kill PFOA regulation—again.
This is an ANTI-MAHA strategy. It is a boomerang that will come back to bite the Republicans in the butt if they pass it, exactly like the Pesticide Liability Shield. Good luck when the Dems can convince the country that MAHA was only a scam.
It is also anti-science and anti-humanity.
Who tucked it into the bill? We will never know.
Who got rid of it?
That would be you and me.