The Farmer Who Got Punished for Reporting Pollution

It's not always easy to do the right thing, but when it's this hard, well, on today's episode, we bring you the story of a dairy farmer in Maine who discovered that his cows and their milk were contaminated with a potentially toxic chemical. The decision he made next, it's not an exaggeration to say, totally changed his life and not for the better. And with me here to tell that story is Bloomberg Environments. Pat Rizzuto, Hi, Pat, Hi, David, Thanks for having me so okay, let's get started. The

farmer's name is fred Stone. You went up to Maine to speak with him. Who is Fredstone and what happened to him? Well? Fredstone is a third generation dairy farmer. He grew up on this absolutely gorgeous ninety acre dairy farm in Maine, about forty minutes from the coast. His whole life has just been taken care of cows, and

then something happened. I think it was around twenty sixteen, right, what happened, Yeah, about three years ago he got a letter from the local water district saying that they had detected levels of pfast chemicals, something called per and polyfloral alcohol substances, which is why we call them PIFAs. That's a mouthful that were twice EPA's health advisory. And we should say these are our chemicals that have been used in nonstick coatings like Taflon, Scotch Guard, and they're used

very frequently in firefighting foam. They're very fire resistant. But they're also called forever chemicals because when they get into the ground or when they get into water, they stick around forever. And it sounds like on Fred's farm he had some of these chemicals in his soil. So what did he do next? Well, what made his situation really unusual was in the past when they found these chemicals,

it's because of an obvious source of contamination. Maybe there's a military base where they were used as firefighting foam. Maybe there's an airport nearby, maybe there was a manufacturing facility, But in Christine, Maine, there was none of the above, and so it was really unclear how in the world these chemicals had gotten into the drinking water. So what did he do next? He learned that there's this chemical here on his farm and it may have impacted himself

into his livestock. What happened next? So you know, when he got this letter way back in November twenty sixteen, he had a meeting with what he calls his board of directors, his family, his lawyer, his vet and they had to decide what to do because there is absolutely no requirement that he come forward and tell anybody about this being in the water on his land. Yeah, this is a really new chemical. Well it's not a new chemical, but it's people are just becoming beginning to become aware

of it. There aren't really any legal requirements to test for it, unlike with other environmental contaminants. So from a legal standpoint, he didn't need to do anything. No, he didn't. He didn't know anything about these chemicals. All he knew was that his water board was telling him that he had too much in his water. They talked about it, and he's an honest guy, and he just felt like the only thing that he could do was come forward and tell the company that bought is built and tell

the state licensing board. Yeah, and he spoke about that as well, his decision to ultimately decide to disclose this information. In that scenario, you have two choices. First choices to say nothing because the state doesn't test for this, or the second is to notify the dairy and notify the

state then it might be a problem. We did the latter, which is that's the only thing we could do, really, and this was really the decision that changed everything, was his decision to notify the people who buy his milk and notify the state that he has this chemical in his property. We'll get to where the chemical came from in a little bit, but what happened after that, because this is really, it seems like for him, a turning

point in his life. Absolutely, because at that point, after the state and dairy got involved, his license to sell milk was suspended and he hasn't sold milk since. So his farm has been without income for almost three years. And even though there again there's no legal requirement to tell anyone about this. This is a chemical that is still, you know, not fully understood. It's not regulated by the EPA in any mandatory sort of way, and yet people

won't buy his milk exactly. There's a lot of uncertainty about these chemicals. There's a lot of concern about these chemicals. The milk company understandably couldn't take that liability risk with there being questions about a chemical and its milk. It couldn't sell that milk. I mean, milk is sacred, it's what parents give their kids, and the licensing board couldn't allow him to sell it because it didn't want to

put the public at risk. Well, to add insult to injury here, it seems like they later have a pretty good working theory about where these chemicals came from, and it's a very unexpected source. Why don't you go into that. Yeah, the state did a lot of investigation, kept trying basically to see if it was something that Fred himself had done by chemicals he put on the land or chemicals he used in the farming supply, but none of that

proved true. What the state ended up determining was that the chemicals were in the land, and they had gotten into the land because of sludge called by the fancy name biosolids but wastewater and paper mill sludge that he had spread on his farm as part of a state encouraged program. And yeah, we should say, you know, bio you call it what you want, biosolids, sludge, wastewater, This

is fertilizer. This is fertilizer that the state encouraged farmers to use because this was disinfected or I guess treated, you know, essentially the stuff that comes out of of sewer pipes. They treated it, gave it to the farmers. You spoke with Norm Labby, who is retired from the local water district in Maine, and he's pretty familiar with the whole story, and he basically just summed it all up. Yeah,

mister Stone did nothing wrong. He was just another struggling farmer who is looking to turn a profit support his family, and he had an opportunity to use low cost fertilizer which was offered to him and approved by the agencies. After he learned that the chemicals had come in via the sludge, he spent a year trying everything he could to see if he could do something to his farm to get the milk clean. He imported hey from farms that did not grow it in sludge. He bought new cows,

he bought a filtering system for the water. He did everything that he and his vet and his attorney could think of, and it actually worked for a little while. They went down. They thought he'd be able to sell his milk again, but they waited and then the levels went back off, and his business is now ruined. I mean, I don't that's that's sounds dramatic, but I don't think that's an exaggeration to say that his total his livelihood

is gone. It is. And you know he had a retirement plan, but it is not doing too well right now. It's gone. Now, we had a plan on November two of sixteen. It all went out the window on November third of sixteen. And these cows, this land are our assets. I mean, those the ones that I lend us, lend us money on because of the assets now and so now they're worthless. So let's take a step back and you know, talk about what this means for other farmers,

not just Fred. I mean, Fred's story is pretty heartbreaking, but you know, what does this mean for other farmers who may also have spread this fertilizer on their land that contains this chemical. I have to imagine if I'm a farmer, I'm not really too excited to tell anyone about this given what happened to Fred. Well, I think one of the lessons from what happened to Fred is

the point about these being forever chemicals. I mean, Fred stopped spreading sludge on his land fifteen years ago and the levels are still so high that it didn't make

a difference. And the state looked at all sorts of options, including you know, digging up soil and applying new soil, and it realized that a that would would have been way too exp but more importantly, it wouldn't have made a difference because when the rain came back down, the chemicals would have mobilized again and come back up to the surface, and again the cows would have gotten contaminated.

So when they dug these forever chemicals, there's a really good reason for that, and that's what spells a lot of concern for other farmers, right And you know, you spoke with Patrick macroy, who is the Deputy Director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, which is an environmental group in Base out of Maine. And he said that right now the buck is you know where the buck is stopping.

The buck is stopping with the farmers. You know, I don't want farmers to be bearing the costs of this, right. You know, fred Stone's a perfect example. The state, the localities were encouraging farmers to spread the sludge. Right they said, hey, this is a great deal for you. You're going to get free fertilizer and you're helping out the town at the same time by reducing our disposal costs. Right, so it's a win win situation. You know, you're doing your

civic duty by taking advantage of this program. And they said at the time, you know, we're testing for the metals. We you know, this stuff's perfectly fine, it's great, go for it. And then twenty years later they say, oh, that's stuff we gave you actually poisoned your fields. You can't sell your milk anymore because it's too toxic. You're out of business. Sorry, have a nice day. So, from a policy standpoint, what can be done to make this

situation a little bit more equitable? I guess for these farmers you know, I'm not saying they should have to, you know, force people to buy their milk, but you know, what are people like Patrick and Fred and maybe others, what are they talking about in terms of changing the policy. Well, first of all, we should keep in mind, we don't know how widespread this problem is, so whether it's a call for alarm. Nobody is saying that it might just be affecting like a handful of farmers. It might. We

just have no clue. And the way it's going to emerge, if it does emerge, is really on the basis of states that are being proactive, and there aren't a whole lot of states that are being proactive. When I did my story, there was only one state, Michigan, that would test agricultural land. Now there's another state that is Connecticut, that's also considering that. But it just seems to me one of the things that was so interesting about your story and your reporting was that the people can really

learn the wrong lesson here. Maybe it's the right lesson actually, which is that the more you test, the more problems you have. So if we you know, to avoid that, just don't test for this, don't It's like it's such a cynical way to go about it. But it also seems like I bet you Fred is thinking I wish I hadn't, you know, tested for this. Well, he told me that he could fully understand why it would be

really hard for anybody else to come forward. I mean, why would they want to put themselves into this kind of calamity? And now you know, Patrick mccroy, the environmental activists also mentioned that, you know, the least that the state can do now is try to help out fred and make him at least partially whole. But it sounds like that's even that's not happening. The State's not providing

a lick of assistance to fred Stone. And I don't want to see that happen to more farmers, right, So, you know, they didn't create the chemicals, they didn't create the policies that allowed contaminated ways to be put on their fields. They shouldn't be the ones who have to bear the economic burden of this legacy pollution. Well, you were talking about policy solutions. I heard about a couple

as I was investigating this. One is that if you have a party that's responsible for the contamination, be it a private company or the military or an airport. Either the either the person who used the chemical or the person who made the chemical that it could be responsible for making that situation right, be responsible for providing clean drinking water to the livestock or to the crops. It could be responsible for purchasing the property. Those are possibilities

right now that has to be accomplished through litigation. Yeah, and then closing it out. Let's let's sort of end with with Fred and what's next for him. You know, he is in a really difficult spot. It sounds like he's just sort of barely hanging on. What's what's uh, what's happening with him in the near term. He's letting a tremendous number of things go untaken care of on his farm, and the barn has problems, His family's health has problems, and he's just not taking care of those.

He's also applied for some help that might be available from us DA where it pays for at least the maintenance of livestock that have been contaminated through pesticides or some other source. He has qualified for that program, but when I spoke with him, he had not gotten any money from that program. And yes, he's pursuing legal options. Yeah, and you know, I get the sense that he doesn't. He's not really embracing his you know, he's not really embracing the the role that he's playing is sort of

this pioneer of pfast issues, kind of like yippie. No, it's it's very disconcerting. Nowhere along the way here did we want to play don Quixote? You know, we just wanted to milk our college and be left a hell alone. And no, I take no comfort in being the first style of the box. I really don't. That was fred Stone, a dairy farmer in Main talking with Bloomberg Environment's Pat Rizzuto,

who is talking with me here today. You can find much more of her reporting on pfas at our website news dot Bloomberg Environment dot com, and if you want to chat with us on social media, use the hashtag parts per b. That hashtag, once again is parts per b. Today's episode of Parts Paviillion was produced by myself along with Marissa Horn and Jessica Coombs. Music for this episode is a message by Jizarre, who was used under a

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