The post Warming Waters Cause Invasion of Sea Squirts at Maine Fisheries appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>In the summer of 2020, Alicia Gaiero began to realize that sea squirts were putting the success of her new oyster farm in jeopardy. She and her two sisters, Amy and Chelsea, were working together to fulfill their dream of a family aquaculture business, Nauti Sisters Sea Farm, in Yarmouth, Maine.
But the critical work of flipping oyster cages—turning them over to combat biofouling and introduce sunlight and air to the bottom—had become impossible. They couldn’t even lift some of them, even though they were made of hollow plastic mesh.
In large numbers, sea squirts—some as large as a pair of tube socks, some smaller than a pinky ring—are surprisingly heavy, and are impacting lobster, oyster, and other fisheries.
The cages were covered and also filled with the globby bodies of sea squirts, invasive marine invertebrates that thrive in the warming waters of the Gulf of Maine and along the coasts of Alaska and the western United States. In large numbers, sea squirts—some as large as a pair of tube socks, some smaller than a pinky ring—are surprisingly heavy, and are impacting lobster, oyster, and other fisheries.
Gaiero had heard that sea squirts could be challenging, but this was out of control. “I’d never seen anything like it,” she says.
By the next season, she felt overwhelmed. “This was ruining my life.”
Blob Invasions Impact Maine’s Fisheries—and Beyond
There are now over 150 independently owned oyster farms in Maine, in part thanks to investment by the state. Under the glistening, still surface of the water, nearly every line and buoy marking a trap or cage is encased with gooey sea squirts—formally known as tunicates, for the tunic-like sheath of fleshy cellulose that covers their siphons, which suck in and filter sea water. The nickname “sea squirts” comes from the fact that they often squirt water when they’re disturbed.
Tunicates, commonly known as sea squirts, are a problem for commercial shellfish farmers, as they glom onto cages and the shellfish themselves. Here, tunicates cover an oyster cage in Casco Bay in Maine. (Photo credit: Alicia Gaiero/Nauti Sisters Sea Farm)
For more than 500 million years, tunicates have existed as simple creatures clinging to underwater substrates and filter feeding on plankton and bacteria. There are hundreds of subspecies. Some have inhabited the Gulf of Maine since the 1800s, arriving in the ballast waters of ships from distant seas; new subspecies have come from Europe and Asia in oyster seed and on cruise ships.
As tunicates spread across oyster cages, mooring lines, and buoys, they add incredible weight, turning a 5-pound oyster cage into an unmanageable 100-pound obstacle. As they proliferate, they compete with bivalves—oysters, mussels, and scallops—for resources and can eventually choke them out entirely. A bivalve covered in globby tunicates can no longer open its shell to feed, and will eventually starve to death.
They were only a mild nuisance to Maine’s working waterfronts until the past decade, when their populations started to soar.
“The biggest thing driving this invasion,” explains Jeremy Miller, research associate and coordinator of the System Wide Monitoring Program at Wells Reserve, “is the warming Gulf of Maine. The Gulf of Maine is getting warmer and warmer every year. Ever since about 2012, we have been going in one direction, and we haven’t had an anomalously cool year since 2007.” According to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, sea surface temperatures in the gulf have been steadily rising at an average of 0.84° F annually, roughly three times that of the world’s oceans.
The Wells Reserve team researches and tracks changes to the environment along the Wells Estuarine Research Reserve, monitoring changes year on year and sharing their findings with the broader scientific community. (Although they are concerned about potential federal cuts to their overall funding, their studies on invasive species receives private foundation money.) The warming waters have had profound impacts on Maine’s fisheries and waterfronts, from the disappearance of Northern shrimp to more frequent flooding events, including so-called “blue sky flooding” in the coastal city of Portland. And those rising temperatures are now driving a sea squirt population boom.
Internal anatomy of a tunicate (Urochordata). Adapted, with permission, from an outline drawing available on BIODIDAC.
Tunicates thrive and spread faster with warmer ocean temperatures. And the rising number of aquaculture farms are providing plentiful structures to which sea squirts can attach themselves and grow.
And there are other factors as well. “The Gulf of Maine, compared to a lot of other parts of the world, is actually fairly low in diversity,” says Larry Harris, Professor Emeritus of Biology Sciences at the University of New Hampshire and co-author of UNH studies on tunicates and warming ocean temperatures. Harris explains that development along the coast of Maine has created the perfect ecosystem for tunicates, with new docks and moorings offering an abundance of substrates for them to attach to in addition to aquaculture farms. Also, tunicates have few true predators in the Gulf of Maine, and overfishing has reduced the number.
Because tunicates are effective filter feeders that grow extremely quickly, they can reproduce alarmingly fast; certain species can double their populations in as little as 8 hours. Some species are considered “colonial,” growing in a super-organism, like coral. Others are called “solitary,” but often appear in clusters and groups because their offspring do not travel far.
And they are not easy to destroy. Cutting a tunicate off a line and throwing it back into the sea doesn’t kill it; a new tunicate will grow from the dismembered piece.
Instead, aquaculture farmers and lobstermen are encouraged to deal with tunicates by desiccation: hauling out traps, lines, and buoys and leaving them in the sun until they fully dry out, which kills the sea squirts. For oyster farmers, combating tunicates means regularly flipping, or “tumbling” the oyster cages to expose the tunicates to the sun.
The Gulf of Maine has a particularly intense tunicate infestation because it’s heating faster than other bodies of water.
The impact of tunicates extends beyond oyster farms. As part of his work at the Wells Reserve, Jeremy Miller manages the Marine Invader Monitoring and Information Collaborative. Traveling to different working waterfronts and Maine islands, he’s found lobstermen complaining about tunicates covering their traps, and hears of mussel farmers whose lines have snapped from the sheer weight of the tunicate blobs. Moreover, the diet of a tunicate—nutrients filtered from seawater—is similar to that of shellfish, reducing resources for native filter feeders.
“People are kind of shocked at the amount of actual biomass of these things,” Miller says. “From a biological standpoint, these are taking nutrients—it takes a lot of stuff to grow that biomass, and it’s all stuff that other things could be using. That creates a big impact on aquaculture.”
The Gulf of Maine has a particularly intense tunicate infestation because it’s heating faster than other bodies of water. But global ocean temperatures are all rising, and tunicates have become a nearly worldwide problem. Three species have appeared in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. Invasive tunicates have even been discovered in the waters off Sitka, Alaska.
Nibbling Away at the Problem
A few radical solutions to the tunicate invasion are in the works. A Norwegian company, Pronofa ASA, has perfected a method for turning the meat of the sea squirt genus Ciona, now common in Maine, into mincemeat for human consumption, much like ground beef.
While not all tunicates are edible, many of the varieties currently invading Maine’s coast are, including clubbed tunicate and members of the Ciona species. Tunicate meat is slightly chewy, reminiscent of calamari. Wild tunicate does look unappetizing, however. The fleshy tubes growing in Maine’s waters are brownish, barrel shaped, and flaccid.
A display of sea pineapples (hoya, known as 海鞘 and 老海鼠in Japanese) at a market. These sea creatures are a delicacy in Japanese cuisine, prized for their unique texture and oceanic flavor, and are often served in sashimi or other traditional dishes. (Photo credit: DigiPub, Getty Images)
It can be a struggle to convince consumers to eat these creatures. But in some parts of the world, they’re a welcome food.
“In Asia, they eat the club tunicate,” explains Larry Harris, University of New Hampshire Professor of Biological Science. “They peel off the outer coating. And in Australia they are a pretty standard part of some diets.” In Chile, a rock-like variety called piure is being embraced by fine-dining establishments as a sustainable and local seafood option.
In Norway, the sea squirts for Pronofa’s culinary experiment are farmed, an idea that causes alarm for Maine farmers as it would mean purposefully introducing tunicates to the environment. It remains to be seen whether intrepid chefs may start experimenting with wild-harvested tunicates. In other parts of the world, including Chile, Argentina, and the Mediterranean, sea squirts are part of the local diet. They are easy to harvest and prepare on any waterfront, and recipes for sea squirts abound in these places.
Even if Americans don’t eat them, sea squirts can be transformed into high-protein feed for various animals, from chickens to salmon, and some have begun exploring that possibility.
University of New Hampshire professor Harris began experimenting with tunicates for animal feed decades ago. But he discovered that a Norwegian company, Ocean Bergen, already held a patent for that purpose, which extended to the U.S., so he discontinued his efforts. Ocean Bergen is one of a handful of Norwegian companies working with tunicates as a future food-system solution. Researchers believe that Ciona, which thrives in the freezing waters around Norway, could help clean the water around salmon farms, filtering out the excess nutrients that cause harmful algal blooms.
Two varieties of tunicate that are taking over Maine waters. (Photo courtesy of the Wells Estuarine Reserve)
Scientists are also experimenting with using tunicates for biofuels. Because they produce cellulose to make their outer tunic bodies, tunicates can be broken down to produce ethanol. Since initial studies in 2013, tunicates have been suggested as a potential fuel of the future, but progress with these experiments has been slow and heavily regulated.
Using tunicates for animal food or biofuels would also involve cultivating them for a reliable harvest, which would meet resistance from the aquaculture industry. Since sea squirts are already wreaking havoc on the seafront, a tunicate farm would likely not be welcome near any existing oyster, mussel, or scallop aquaculture operation.
It may be a while before Mainers consider the idea of eating a sea squirt. Meanwhile, the most important step in preventing tunicate spread is effectively stopping their proliferation. As ocean waters continue to warm, and Maine’s aquaculture industry continues to grow, it is likely that the sea squirt will thrive, and aqua-farmers will have to deal with them.
As Larry Harris warns, “Every dock, every net, is a potential population.”
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]]>The post A Circular Economy for Fish? These Icelandic Companies Have a Plan. appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>The slippery, scaly skin of the Atlantic Cod is usually thrown out when the fish is harvested. But in a remote settlement on Iceland’s northwestern coast, a group of scientists is turning fish skin into human skin grafts.
Founded in 2007, the Icelandic company Kerecis has developed fish-skin soft-tissue regeneration products that can be used to protect the body’s tissues and create an environment that facilitates tissue regeneration. Kerecis has transformed the lives of many people with persistent injuries, enabling burn victims from the wildfires in Maui and California and a 2019 volcanic eruption in New Zealand to heal and generate new skin.
In addition to supporting burn victims, the Icelandic company is part of a larger transformation of the fishing industry, an effort to cut down on waste by using a larger percentage of the fish that are grown and caught there. As part of its management of a sustainable fishery, Iceland enforces strict quotas, and so Icelandic fishermen, limited in how many fish they can harvest in a year, have had to innovate to find profits from a smaller quantity of fish.
The Iceland Ocean Cluster—of which Kerecis is a part—is a collection of marine-focused startups operating out of Reykjavik, founded in 2011 by entrepreneur Thor Sigfússon. One of the founding principles at Iceland Ocean Cluster is the 100% Fish Project, which aims to create high-value products—like supplements and medical and design products—out of previously wasted parts of the Atlantic Cod. In Iceland, over 237,269 tons of cod was harvested in 2022, giving companies like Kerecis plenty of material to work with.
Thor Sigufsson (Photo courtesy of Iceland Ocean Cluster)
Throughout human history, every part of the fish has been used—Indigenous tribes still embrace the use of the entire fish. But in modern industrial fishing, 20 to 80 percent of fish harvested worldwide is wasted during the harvesting process.
Fishing boats throw bycatch fish overboard, but they often do not survive, and processing plants sometimes discard everything besides the filets—from skin and bones to blood and guts.
The global industrial fishing industry wastes more than 10 million metric tons of fish proteins and byproducts every year, according to Sigfússon. And disposal of large quantities of fish waste leads to the introduction of disease, unpleasant smells, and pollution that damages existing fisheries.
Sigfússon’s vision for the 100% Fish project does not end on the coastlines of Iceland, however. His book The New Fish Wave: How to Ignite the Seafood Industry, released in 2020, explained the premise and success of the Iceland Ocean Cluster Project, and he has promoted the project at speaking events around the world in the intervening years.
Some entrepreneurs, environmentalists, and fishermen have been intrigued and have found the model of the ocean cluster to be highly exportable.
Since the establishment of the Iceland Ocean Cluster, Sigfússon has been involved in the creation of similar clusters in Connecticut, New York, Alaska, Maine, and the Great Lakes region, as well as in Denmark and Namibia. All of these marine clusters foster small businesses that are leading innovation, promoting economic development on the waterfront and prioritizing the reduction of waste in the fishing industry.
Fish liver has long been a valuable source of Omega fish oil, Sigfússon says. Before he started the first cluster, Icelanders were drying fish heads and exporting them to Africa for high prices to be used in traditional fish soup recipes. “From there, we started to work on the skin—so we started to make fish leather,” he said. “The fish skin then through our projects is developed into collagen, which is a protein good for the joints and the skin. One of our biggest businesses in Iceland is collagen and the products coming from collagen.”
Kerecis scientists have discovered that fish skin’s properties make it an ideal complement to human skin. “Fish skin is homologous to human skin,” explains a press release from Kerecis. “When applied to the human body, the fish skin provides the ideal environment for the body to recruit its own cells in the regeneration process.” Because there is no known disease transfer risk between Atlantic cod and humans, the release explains, the Kerecis fish skin only has to be gently processed, and it retains its similarity to human tissue.
The project does not stop with fish, Sigfússon points out. “We have quite a long history in developing products from the so-called waste from the prawn industry.”
Even though zero-waste projects have gained popularity in recent years, there are challenges to taking the 100% Fish project international, Sigfússon says.
“Here in Iceland, we are lucky that fishermen have been really open to all these innovations,” Sigfússon continues. “Still, so many fishermen around the world that I talk to say, ‘We need to catch more.’ We are actually saying you can catch less and create more value.”
Bringing the Vision to the Great Lakes Region
David Nafzger, the executive director of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers, collaborates with political leaders in the U.S. states and Canada provinces that border the Great Lakes to protect the freshwater bodies and grow the region’s $6 trillion economy. The group has recently adopted the 100% Fish program.
“I visited the Iceland Ocean Cluster, and we were just amazed with the fish leather lamps and all the products on the table,” says Nafzger, sporting a stylish fish leather belt that, to the uninformed eye, is indistinguishable from traditional leather. “Talking with Thor was really inspiring in terms of the success that they’ve generated in Iceland.”
The Icelandic Ocean Cluster’s zero-waste model
Some states and provinces involved in the Great Lakes Ocean Cluster have robust fishing industries while others have smaller lake borders. Nevertheless, Nafzger says they are equally invested in the program.
“We created a 100% Fish pledge and invited companies involved in the fishing industry to sign on,” he says. “This is a commitment that they’re taking voluntarily to use 100 percent of the fish productively by 2025.” They have already had more than 20 companies sign the pledge, which Nafzger says represents the lion’s share of the fishing industry around the lakes.
In addition to the leaders of the states and provinces, Nafzger also works with the Indigenous communities in the region, whose tribal fisheries have embraced the project and suggested new fish species for Nafzger’s team to study uses for.
“The focus in Iceland has been almost exclusively on cod,” says Nafzger. “Here we see product diversification as a real opportunity to maximize the value of every white fish that is taken, but we also look at other species and ways to generate more value and employment through the fishery as a whole.”
The collaborators have found new applications for by-products from species including white fish, walleye, perch, lake trout, and white sucker. They have created prototypes for multiple collagen products as well as fish leather from multiple species.”
The 100% Fish Project in the Great Lakes region is still young, with the official collaboration beginning in 2022. According to their press releases, the group believes that the value of a single fish can be raised from $12 to $3,500 by creating new products from parts currently wasted.
“Our ultimate goal is a more sustainable fishery, more economic activity around the fishery, and more employment in rural economies,” Nafzger says.
In New England, Expanding the Effort
On the rocky coast of the Atlantic in Portland, Maine, the New England Ocean Cluster has also embraced both the 100% Fish Project and Sigfússon’s model. Founded in 2014, the New England group’s is the oldest cluster outside of Iceland.
Patrick Arnold, who worked as the director of operations for the Maine Port Authority before founding the cluster, met Sigfússon after seeing him speak on marine economies. “He approached me,” Arnold remembers, “and he said, ‘Hey, this is simple. Patrick, we can just sign a paper and partner and do this in the United States.’ And that’s what we did.”
A lobster boat in Maine’s Boothbay Harbor. (Photo by Chris Cary)
At their cooperative office space “the Hùs” in Portland, the New England Ocean Cluster hosts blue economy businesses from around the world. Some provide business solutions, like Ocean Farmr, a company out of Australia that offers financial technology for aquaculture, and some provide adjacent services like Maine Standard Biofuels, a homegrown company that uses plant oils and grease to create diesel fuel. The start-up environment helps international companies gain a foothold in the United States, helps to fund local ocean-based research, and incubates new business ideas.
The leadership at New England Ocean Cluster is also quick to reiterate that 100% Fish is a return to some of the oldest and most traditional ways of fishing. “Talking about zero waste or a circular economy should not be a net new thing,” Arnold says. “We are not bashful in saying that, because if we just focus on Ocean Cluster and 100% Fish, it misses the ancient history of the seafaring cultures on the coast of Peru, [where they] are fully utilizing their ocean species, or the same in Asia, or just about everywhere in the world. There’s a lot for us to learn from Indigenous cultures.”
Arnold points out that with lobster, Maine has a monoculture of sorts. The cluster’s flagship company is Marin Skin Care, started by Amber Boutiette and Patrick Breeding. The two were graduate students at the University of Maine studying biomedical engineering when their professor, Dr. Bob Bayer, introduced them to a glycoprotein in lobsters that helps the marine crustaceans to heal wounds and regenerate their signature claws.
The lobster glycoprotein is part of the invertebrate’s circulatory fluids and is usually flushed away when the creature is harvested. Today, Marin Skin Care uses that glycoprotein to create a skin product that soothes eczema and irritated skin.
Harvesting lobsters with Luke’s Lobster in Tenants Harbor, Maine. Luke’s Lobster works with Marin Skincare, collecting waste lobster fluid during processing for use in making skincare products. (Photo by Chris Cary)
The New England cluster has found ways to work with several ground fish and shellfish species, including oysters and mussels, as well as lobster. It has also expanded beyond aquatic life, says Chris Cary, the cluster’s chief operating officer.
“It is far, far more inclusive than 100% Fish because there are things that aren’t even biogenic that are being used with the same mindset, like old fishing gear being upcycled, ocean plastics being upcycled,” Cary says. In fact, he says, “I think that should be a part of the 100% Fish project.”
Two examples of the expanded vision are Opolis Optics, which turns ocean plastics into ski goggles and sunglasses, and Rugged Seas, which transforms shoreman’s bib overalls into tote bags.
Though the global cluster projects have only made a small dent in the spectacular waste of the world’s fishing industries, Sigfússon is hopeful that in a few short years, they will take a large chunk out of global waste. “We have an opportunity to create value from hopefully two to three million metric tons in the coming five years,” he says. “It’s a big challenge.”
While the project might be too big for one country, company, or community to address, Sigfússon hopes that the combined efforts of many small and mid-sized entities can start moving the global fishing industry closer to the ultimate goal of once again using the entire fish.
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]]>The post PFAS Shut Maine Farms Down. Now, Some Are Rebounding. appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>Until a few years ago, Songbird Farm in Unity, Maine, grew wheat, rye, oats, and corn, as well as an array of vegetables in three high tunnel greenhouses, and supported a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program for over 100 customers. It was a successful farm, says Adam Nordell, that supported he and his wife Johanna Davis, their two children, and an employee.
“The business was working,” Nordell says. “We were hitting our stride.”
But at the end of 2020, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection tested their farm and found elevated levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly called PFAS, PFOS, or forever chemicals—and found them in shockingly high numbers. Forever chemicals have been linked to a number of serious health problems including cancer, reproductive issues, and liver and kidney disease.
Consumption of crops or animals grown on PFAS-contaminated land puts humans at high risk of illness. To Nordell’s dismay, Songbird Farm’s well water tested 400 times the state’s safety threshold of 20 parts per trillion.
Songbird Farm (Photo credit: Jenny McNulty)
Maine had been spreading what is called sludge on its farmland and fields since the 1980s. The fittingly named sludge is a combination of wastewater and sewage, and its application on farms has been seen as a way to keep waste out of waterways and feed fields.
For years, application of sludge in Maine was regarded as safe, as it was in a number of other states; a 1994 booklet from the EPA claimed that the “beneficial application of biosolids to provide crop nutrients or to condition the soil is not only safe but good public policy.” The state later discovered, however, that the sludge contained harmful PFAS.
The sources of contamination were numerous. Once the Clean Water Act passed in 1972, many chemicals and toxins that had flowed freely from paper mills into Maine’s rivers started to be processed through sewage plants. Additionally, forever chemicals that appeared in cleaning chemicals, makeup, and nonstick pans made their way down household drains and ended up in local sewage plants.
The biosolids created as sewage breaks down can be used as fertilizer on farmland, a practice that the Environmental Protection Agency still touts as “beneficial,” even though spreading these highly toxic chemicals across farmland allows the compounds to leach into the groundwater, contaminate crops grown on the land, and affect grazing animals.
The spreading of sludge as fertilizer in Maine was documented thanks to licensing requirements to apply biosolids. In late 2021, the Maine DEP identified 60 sites where 10,000 cubic yards of biosolids were applied as fertilizer with homes within half an acre of the application, a practice the agency called “Tier 1” because it presented the highest risk to human health.
The state began testing soil and water samples from those sites, which included Songbird Farm, in the fall of 2021. In addition, it began to test more than a thousand sites with lower levels of contamination in 2023. While the affected sites are situated across the state, most are concentrated in agricultural areas.
By the spring of 2022, more than 50 farms in Tier 1 areas learned they had high levels of forever chemicals in their products, their fields, and their water. Some farms were able to stop production temporarily while they identified possible solutions. However, several farmers, including Nordell and Davis, were forced to close up shop permanently. Farmers were hurting, consumers were worried, and Maine’s food system looked to be in crisis.
“From an agriculture perspective, we want the soil to come out the other side usable and healthy. But in the meantime, we have adopted the truism that PFAs do not have to mean the end of a farm, and there may be alternative options.”
While the Environmental Working Group has estimated that over 2 million acres of farmland across the United States have been spread with sludge, only Maine and Michigan have done significant testing for chemical contamination of farmland. The spreading of sludge as fertilizer remains legal in all U.S. states aside from Maine, where it was outlawed in 2022.
Scientists are still piecing together what happened in the state, but it’s clear that some forever chemical contamination has also come from other waste materials, such as jet fuel and firefighting foam, particularly in Northern Maine, in and around the former home of the Loring Air Force Base.
Today, many of the Maine farms originally affected are operational again. While Songbird Farm is no longer commercially productive, Nordell now works for Defend Our Health, a local organization dedicated to removing toxins from the environment. A series of special fundraisers and an emergency relief fund helped to keep farms afloat in the aftermath of the discovery, and since then, some have changed what they grow or altered their crops. Others have been able to relieve the problem through water treatments and removal of affected hay and manure. And some are considering building solar arrays instead of farming.
“We are trying to be as optimistic as possible that there will be feasible scientific strategies in the future,” says Nancy McBrady, deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry (DACF). “From an agriculture perspective, we want the soil to come out the other side usable and healthy. But in the meantime, we have adopted the truism that PFAs do not have to mean the end of a farm, and there may be alternative options.”
First Steps: Supporting Farmers and Conducting Research
In January of 2022, as the level of contamination became clear, the Maine Farmland Trust, which holds easements on many of the farms that were directly affected by contamination, organized with the DACF and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) to work with the farmers who were now without a livelihood, providing them with income replacement for lost crops.
Financial support from the PFAS Emergency Relief Fund assists with direct monetary assistance and covers to cost of biosolids testing, health coverage for affected farmers, and has also been used to invest in infrastructure for PFAS relief and remediation.
“We provide a continuum of support,” McBrady says DACF’s Brady of the collective effort. “First and foremost, we are on the ground doing scientific analysis of the source of the PFAS with comprehensive testing that we pay for. This gives a blueprint of the situation and provides an opportunity to consider mitigation strategies such as changing the rotation of livestock, cleaning up the water, or trying a different crop.”
In addition to soil and water testing, the emergency fund also covers continued product testing, allowing farmers to return their goods to store shelves with confidence. In an effort to embrace full transparency, some affected farms even post their PFAS test results on their websites. Testing, however, is only the first step towards regaining use of PFAS contaminated farmland.
“There isn’t that much great land for farming in Maine,” says Amy Fisher, President & CEO of the Maine Farmland Trust, referring to the state’s famously rocky soil. “So we cannot lose any of it to contamination. These farms have easements on them which permanently restrict development, so we have a long-term legal interest in returning these properties to agriculture.”
The trust also moved rapidly to learn more about the problem and potential solutions, reaching out to researchers and universities studying forever chemicals and the challenges of soil remediation.
“There are a lot of theories being tested. We are eagerly awaiting research breakthroughs that we can start implementing.”
Until Maine began its soil testing, there was little known about the extent of the chemicals’ impact on agriculture, and even less known about reversing those impacts. In July 2023, the Maine legislature passed a bipartisan bill to devote $60 million to a fund to address PFAS contamination. A portion of those funds was allocated to farm and soil research. Then MFT partnered with the University of Maine, Colby College, and Michigan State University to study the farmland impact of forever chemicals.
Michigan State University was already home to one of the premier PFAS research centers in the country. Maine was able to offer the researchers there access to a number of case studies of affected farm as well as areas of contaminated farmland on which to test remediation methods.
“There are a lot of theories being tested,” says Maine DACF’s PFAS director Meagan Hennessey. “We are eagerly awaiting research breakthroughs that we can start implementing.”
Methods of Remediation
Researchers are testing various methods of remediation in the field, including using biochar, a form of charcoal, to bind to the dangerous chemicals so they then be extracted from the soil, and absorbing the dangerous chemicals with plants that can then be removed, processed, and burned at temperatures over 2,730 Fahrenheit with special incinerators.
The hope is to help farmers continue farming despite PFAS contamination. “One thing that we recognized as we went was just how specific every farm is,” explains Hennessey. “A lot of farms may have a hot area, but it is pretty rare that the land is contaminated through the whole farming property.”
Hennessey also notes there are high-risk and low-risk plants. Plants that bear fruit, as well as garlic and asparagus, have a low transfer rate, which means even when grown in contaminated soils they do not contain high levels of PFAS.
Leafy greens, such as lettuce, have a high transfer rate and can easily carry dangerous levels of forever chemicals as can hay and grasses usedfor animal forage. Hay provides a particular challenge because it is often sold and transported to other farms where it is fed to livestock who spread the chemicals through their manure.
For this reason, McBrady adds, some farms are being encouraged to switch to grains, which are less likely to absorb PFAS. “We can fund a farm to switch from hay to grain cultivation, which requires new equipment, new storage, and new drying facilities,” she added. “In doing so, they now have a robust alternative feed supply and their impacted fields are still being utilized. That’s an example of keeping a farm and acreage in production with an alternative crop.”
On Contaminated Mi’kmaq Land, Hemp as a Solution
While farms around the state are adjusting to the new reality, in far Northern Maine in Aroostook County, a novel idea for soil remediation is in the experimental stages.
Upon the deactivation of the Loring Air Force Base in 1994, the state of Maine returned 800 acres to the Aroostook Band of the Mi’kmaq, a tribal community of approximately 1,500 people living in the remote Maine county. Because the area of the former air force base had been the site of firefighting foam testing and jet fuel spills, it was supposed to have been cleaned before being returned to the Mi’kmaq. But tests in 2020 showed levels of PFAS, PFOS, and heavy metals in the soil that were so high they have made the land unsuitable for farming, gardening, or human habitation.
Chelli Stanley and the organization she founded, Upland Grassroots, have been working with the Mi’kmaq people since 2019 to test fiber hemp as a crop that extracts PFAS from the soil as it grows. The organization, based in Limestone, Maine, is growing hemp on contaminated Mi’kmaq land with the assistance of tribal members.
Monitoring the hemp crop. (Photo by Chelli Stanley, Upland Grassroots)
“My initial interest was cleaning the environment in general,” Stanley explains. “Hemp is known for its soil-remediation abilities. We started working on PFAS, and just as the problem in Maine became evident, we were already looking for a solution.”
“We know that hemp is taking PFAS out of the soil,” says Stanley. “What we are working on now is the breakdown method.”
University of Virginia scientist Bryan Berger works with Stanley on the hemp project. “For the past two years, we’ve done greenhouse testing with hemp to see how much [PFAS] it can take up and how growth conditions affect it,” he says. “It is pretty remarkable how much PFAS you can put in hemp. It is levels that would melt our skin. It seems to have almost an unlimited capacity to absorb things out of the environment.”
The challenge facing the scientists now is the removal of the PFAS from the hemp plants once they’re harvested. “This year,” says Stanley, “We’re sending samples to the University of Minnesota to test breaking [the hemp] down and turning it into biofuels.”
Hemp as an option for soil remediation has been slow to catch on in the rest of the state. Further studies need to be done and the process of complete soil rehabilitation would likely take several years. But the Mi’kmaq tribe understands the need for a longer timeline.
“This is an area where the air force was spraying PFAs for over 50 years,” explains Stanley, “so it doesn’t make sense that you can pollute for that long and have a solution in a very short time. [Mi’kmaq] Chief Peter Paul said this land will be with us forever, so if it takes a generation or two to clean it, it will be worth it for the people in the future.”
Holding on to Hope
The Maine DEP maintains a map of where the sludge was originally spread and continues testing farms where contamination is a concern. But for now, many of the experts we spoke to say they feel hopeful about what the future holds for PFAS remediation in the state.
“It’s important to realize we have over 76,000 farms in Maine, and the vast majority do not have PFAs concerns.”
“It’s important to realize we have over 76,000 farms in Maine, and the vast majority do not have PFAs concerns,” says McBrady of DACF.
Despite his own farm’s trajectory, Adam Nordell is proud of how Maine stepped up to support its farmers. “We embraced transparency,” he says. “Those who stayed in business won an incredible amount of trust, and several of them have actually grown their sales in the same year they had to stop sales—that’s an incredible success story coming out of a crisis.”
Songbird Farm (Photo credit: Jenny McNulty)
Nordell hopes other farmers, scientists, and NGOs can learn from what has transpired in Maine. “Other states are starting to test,” he says. “They need to be ready with a safety net when farmers discover they have contamination on their land, so people can stay in business.”
The organizations that originally banded together to handle the emergency response to the PFAS crisis have now shifted to searching for long-term solutions. And they remain optimistic that they’ll find them.
In late October, delegates from MFT and the three universities involved in researching farmland will gather in Michigan for the second annual symposium on the Current Knowledge and Application for Agricultural Production of PFAS, where they hope to encourage collaboration and present research on farmland remediation possibilities.
“Academics around the world want to work on this and solve these problems,” says Fisher MFT. “Connecting them to farmers is how we can contribute.”
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