On February 8th The Environment & Natural Resources Committee held a meeting on the Maine PFAS Task Force report https://www.maine.gov/pfastaskforce/materials/report/PFAS-Task-Force-Report-FINAL-Jan2020.pdf starting at 1:00 pm on Thursday, February 6th.
Prior to the Public Comment, members of the Governor's PFAS Task Force, including Jeff McBurnie, director of permitting and regulatory affairs at Casella Organics, provided input on the task force report's recommendations. McBurnie has played a key role in making sure that Casella's Earthlife Compost products were exempt from State PFAS restriction implemented in 2019. [Link to pfascasella.pdf]
The PFAS Task Force report states that, "Municipalities spent hundreds of thousands of dollars more than they had budgeted for in 2019 to test for PFAS and to send wastewater sludge to landfills instead of using it as a soil amendment."
As landfills in Maine become the disposal sites for increasing quantities of PFAS contaminated sludge from across the northeast, the amount of leachate containing PFAS is also likely to increase. Landfill leachate is currently being discharged through wastewater facilities into the Penobscot, Sebasticook, and Kennebec Rivers.
While neighboring states take action to track and control PFAS-containing landfill leachate, the State of Maine has no requirements to treat or test for PFAS compounds prior to discharge of leachate into waterways. As a result, neighboring state's landfill leachate is being exported to Maine for disposal.
[http://penbay.org/waste/landfills/PFASKennebecMerrimack.pdf]
The task force report focuses on unlined landfills as a major source of PFAS contamination, but fails to look at impacts of PFAS-containing leachate generated in lined landfills that are taking sludge.
It will be important that committee members to understand the importance of including provisions in legislation relating to implementing the task force report to address the tracking, testing, treatment, disposal, and environmental impacts of PFAS-contaminated landfill leachate.
[http://penbay.org/waste/landfills/PFASLandfillsarticles.pdf]
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