Kaitlyn Budion, reporting for the Maine Morning Star, recently spoke with Defend Our Health and the Conservation Law Foundation about EPA’s new draft guidance on two types of PFAS – PFOA and PFOS — in biosolids, or sludge, a wastewater treatment byproduct that can be used as a fertilizer on farm fields.
“This is the EPA failing to do its job and failing to follow the science,” said Emily Carey Perez de Alejo, executive director of Defend Our Health. And that failure, Carey Perez de Alejo said, means state governments will have to do even more to fill the vacuum.
Taken altogether, Carey Perez de Alejo said, the draft signals that the EPA won’t have strong, cohesive regulations for PFAS anytime soon, and states will have to step up to address the issue. “The good news is that the states taking coordinated action on these issues is showing really good impact even in the absence of federal leadership,” Carey said.
Read the full coverage (published July 13, 2026)
