Credit: Scott Goodwill/Unsplash
by EHN Curators Apr 22, 2025
A decades-long practice of using textile mill sludge as free fertilizer has left nearly 10,000 acres of South Carolina farmland contaminated with toxic PFAS, prompting calls for a sweeping federal cleanup.
Hiroko Tabuchi reports for The New York Times.
In short:
- South Carolina officials are urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to extend Superfund status to farmland around the shuttered Galey & Lord textile mill, citing widespread contamination from industrial sludge once promoted as fertilizer.
- The sludge, spread between 1993 and 2013 on more than 300 fields, contains PFAS, which are linked to cancer and other health problems; in some areas, contamination exceeds EPA safety limits by hundreds or thousands of times.
- Although the mill site itself was designated a Superfund site in 2022, this would mark the first time farmland is included due to contamination from sewage sludge fertilizer, raising serious concerns about food safety and long-term health risks.
