University teams studying how ‘forever chemicals’ contaminate soil and groundwater, including projects focused on farms, lose millions in grant funding.
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University teams studying how ‘forever chemicals’ contaminate soil and groundwater, including projects focused on farms, lose millions in grant funding.
May 19, 2025
May 20, 2025 Update: On May 13, EPA canceled several other research projects focused on PFAS on farms and in food, including in Maine, Virginia, and other states, ending a $15 million investment into tackling the issue. While some of those have not yet been listed by DOGE, Bryan Berger, the principal investigator for a University of Virginia project looking at how PFAS accumulates in and impacts food crops, said the recipients received formal termination letters.
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May 19, 2025 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has canceled grant funding to university research teams studying how “forever chemicals” contaminate soil and groundwater, including at least $3 million for two projects specifically looking at contamination on farms.
The chemicals, collectively called PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), are linked to a variety of serious health risks. Over the past several years, they have increasingly been found in farm soils due to the use of sewage sludge as fertilizer, causing devastation for farmers. They are also now widely found in drinking water, in the foods Americans eat, and in pesticides, and experts say more research is needed to understand their impacts and find effective ways to eliminate contamination.
According to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) website, the EPA canceled a $1.6 million grant to Texas A&M University for researchers to analyze how plants take up and store the chemicals, and to develop monitoring tools for PFAS in fertilizer, soils, and irrigation water. It canceled another $1.6 million grant to Michigan State University to study how the chemicals accumulate in both crops and livestock. “The expected outcome is to improve the knowledge of the PFAS life cycle in a farm setting,” the researchers wrote in the MSU grant description. “Direct beneficiaries include farmers, agricultural advisors, human health and the environment.”
Additional canceled grants include a University of Florida study looking at how flooding might exacerbate PFAS contamination in water and soil and an Oregon State project to increase understanding of PFAS toxicity. EPA also cut funding to a study on common pesticides called neonicotinoids, which are linked to pollinator declines, in rural drinking water.
The grant cancellations, posted to DOGE’s website between May 6 and May 8, were in line with reporting The New York Times published last month that found the EPA was planning on cutting grants in the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program. Some cancellations were also linked to the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, where the agency is planning to cut staff by up to 75 percent.
President Trump’s recent budget proposed a 45 percent budget cut for that office, in addition to cutting overall EPA funding by more than half. “Such deep funding cuts would make executing the duties EPA is required to perform impossible,” said Michelle Roos, the Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit consisting of former EPA employees, in a statement.
Last week, the EPA also rolled back limits on PFAS in drinking water, eliminating the regulations for some of the chemicals and delaying the implementation of limits that will remain in place. (Link to this post.)
July 30, 2025
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