[rapjr9]

So this has been going on for more than half a century now. Wisconsin started using Milorganite in 1926:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milorganite

"Since its inception, over four million metric tons of Milorganite have been sold"

Teflon was trademarked in 1945:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene

Everything alive has likely been poisoned, including children and pets. Certain diseases have been on the rise for a long time, this might be part of the explanation for why. It sounds like the solution will be to stop manufacturing PFOS and related chemicals until there is a scalable way to destroy it and then control its use and destruction, find a way to get it out of people, and probably dilute it where it is found in the environment (it is not possible to chemically process 1/5 of all the soil on agricultural lands. Is it in water tables?) Then hope what remains doesn't do too much damage. Milorganite is only sold in the US so perhaps only the US is contaminated, though I'd suspect the EU may have adopted similar practices. Possibly the US will have to outsource a lot of food production for a long time, though a lot is already outsourced.

[toomuchtodo]

> estimates from the Environmental Working Group suggest these harmful chemicals could be polluting nearly 20 million acres of cropland, more than 20% of all U.S. farmland.

At least in Maine, they are siting solar on contaminated farmland in order to eek some use out of contaminated land that cannot be used for agriculture within the next 30 years.

https://www.ecos.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/PFAS-in-Bios... ("PFAS in Biosolids: A Review of State Efforts & Opportunities for Action")

[OutOfHere]

Why do they think that thirty years will be sufficient? PFAS won't degrade in the environment for centuries to over ten thousand years. Various remediation techniques exist, but they can require growing something on the land to slowly take up the PFAS, and this is not compatible with using the land as a solar farm. In practical terms, without prolonged remediation, the land is finished for agricultural use. At some point, they sure will try to regrow and sell PFAS-poisoned food though to unwary consumers.

[toomuchtodo]

30 years is typically the lifetime estimated for a utility scale solar facility (with leases for land following the same duration), at which point it can either be repowered or everything torn out and the land returned to original state.

It’s possible this land is permanently tainted for agricultural use, but too early to assume, as PFAS remediation technology might advance quickly.

> but they can require growing something on the land to slowly take up the PFAS, and this is not compatible with using the land as a solar farm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics is a potential implementation if bioremediation proves both feasible and scalable. Perhaps the land is ready to go back into ag use if remediation can be performed in parallel with the thirty year lifespan I mentioned. If not, it carries on as solar production.