Federal grants totaling more that $15 million have been awarded to 10 research centers to collect data on the bioaccumulation of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in agricultural plants and livestock and eventually to humans, as well as to explore strategies to reduced agricultural exposure to PFAS.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the grants on Sept. 4, 2024, with Christopher Frey, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Research and Development, saying “The research supported by these grants will increase our knowledge of how PFAS is impacting our farmlands and food supply and help ensure our farming communities stay viable for years to come.”

On April 10, 2024, the EPA issued a final rule that sets drinking water standards for five individual PFAS substances, including PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, and HFPO-DA (also known as “GenX Chemicals”). In addition, on April 19, 2024 EPA issued a second PFAS rule designating the PFAS substances perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as hazardous substances because those chemicals have been linked to cancers, immune and developmental damage to infants and children, and has some impact on the liver and heart.

Bryan Berger, the principal investigator of the research project at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, told The Driller, “There's a lot of evidence that PFAS accumulates in plants and animals and our food supply. So there's kind of an awareness that it’s happening and therefore we’re trying to understand what the sources are that lead to the accumulation in crops and animals.”

The research Berger is leading was awarded $1,599,999 to study PFAS uptake into soil and crops from contaminated irrigation water, evaluate how the uptake is influenced by other chemicals and environmental conditions, and to develop on-farm tools to identify unexpected PFAS sources. Researchers will also conduct field collection of insect, animal and native plant tissue samples in areas adjacent to highly polluted land to understand how PFAS bioaccumulates into food webs and how PFAS may spread to native plants of cultural importance to Tribal communities. Outcomes of this project will include recommendations for producers to reduce PFAS bioaccumulation in crops and to develop technologies for detecting PFAS on farms in soils and crops.

The level of danger to human health by the ingestion of PFAS faced by consumers is “an area of active research,” according to Berger, who added, “There are a lot of different sources (of exposure to PFAS) that we come in contact with every day. Food is one, but there are over 4,000 different compounds. So, you know, they’re (PFAS substances) pretty much in everything from cookware, to cosmetics, to consumer goods.”

“One point of this grant is to try and assess how much does PFAS accumulate (in humans) and once we can understand how much it accumulates, then we can begin to try and understand those effects,” Berger said.

The remaining grant recipients, how much each was awarded, and details about their research are:

• Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.; $1,6 million to work with a crop and livestock farm in Michigan that received land application of PFAS-contaminated biosolids to evaluate the fate, transport, plant uptake, bioaccumulation in livestock, and life cycle of PFAS during farming practices.
• Passamaquoddy Tribe, Sipayik Environmental Department, Pleasant Point, Maine; $1,558,555 to study the accumulation of PFAS chemicals in finfish and shellfish within the coastal and inland waters of the Peskotomuhkati (Passamaquoddy) homelands the culture, economy, and traditions of which include fishing and fish consumption.
• Temple University, Philadelphia; $800,051 to investigate PFAS introduction into an urban gardening system from soil, nutrient amendments, or irrigation water uptake leading to bioaccumulation in crops grown in urban gardens with a focus on the impact of those sources on crop uptake using raised beds with lettuce, carrots, and soybean plants, and composts and biosolids.
• Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas; $1.6 million to design, and develop plant-based biosensors for PFAS detection in biosolids, soils, and water and reduce PFAS bioavailability to plants in biosolid-amended soils, and evaluating the sensitivity of developed biosensors in monitoring PFAS contamination.
• Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas; $1.6 million to investigate potential non-traditional PFAS sources in farming operations through lab and modeling studies, and conduct a survey and characterization of the impacts of manure and biosolid pre-application treatment or processing.
• State University of New York at Albany; $1.6 million to investigate how proper engineering control could allow the continued and beneficial use of biosolids on agricultural soil, and to develop models to investigate the relationship between PFAS concentrations in soil vs. water compared to soil properties with and without powdered activated carbon.
• University of Illinois, Urbana; $1,599,522 to monitor the occurrence and abundance of PFAS in subsurface tile-drained fields irrigated with rural sewage effluent by routinely measuring PFAS in irrigation water, groundwater, drainage water, soils, and crops, and to develop innovative mitigation techniques to prevent PFAS plant uptake from sewage effluent irrigation and biosolids soil amendment by using two types of unique biochars.
• University of Maine, Orono; $1,599,998 to equip farmers with a set of integrated and scalable PFAS mitigation strategies that target key points of PFAS transfer to reduce the risks associated with producing forages, milk, and meat on PFAS contaminated soil, and to conduct research to identify crop management strategies to reduce PFAS uptake by forage crops.
• University of Utah, Salt Lake City; $1,598,849 to understand the wastewater treatment processes that may contribute to PFAS remaining in biosolids that are applied to agricultural fields, and to evaluate the effect of different soil management practices (e.g., cover crops, biochar amendment) on the fate of PFAS in biosolids and to study the potential of PFAS uptake to plants under plant, compost, and soil types.

This research will produce “a lot of good information about what the potential sources of PFAS accumulation are,” said Berger, who added concerns about PFAS have been going on since at least the 1970s.

“Research like this that can provide information to educate people, and kind of help them understand what the problems are,” he said. The research can lead to strategies and recommendations to farmers “about how to mitigate PFAS spread.”

Read the announcement.