Are all those Dirt Trucks Delivering the Next Environmental Problem?

 As reported by Peter Cary in the Prince William Times:

“Contractors (working on construction of nearby data centers) with excess dirt to dump pay whoever will take it $50 to $100 a load…far less than landfills to take the dirt..”

“At least four farms around Nokesville are taking dirt now, residents say. One is Silver Eagle Stable on Parkgate Road, where farm manager Chris Noakes says he is trying to raise a 3-acre, rear pasture by 18 feet.”

“Trucks carrying dirt to his farm, nearly 100 a day in recent weeks, have accounted for most of the traffic on Parkgate and neighboring roads, residents say.”

Getting paid to accept soil, oil, or biosolids is often not as good a deal as it initially appears. Maybe it’s a good deal for the farmer, certainly it’s a good deal for the contractor, but has this soil been tested to make sure what the farmers are accepting is clean fill because I’ve heard this story before back when I worked at the U.S. EPA. The Shenandoah Stables was a 7-acre property located near Moscow Mills, Missouri. In 1971, before the EPA even existed the owner allowed a waste oil hauler to spray the horse arena on site with waste oil to control dust.

Over 40 horses died, and people became ill after the spraying. The oil contained dioxin. The same year, some of the contaminated soil was excavated and used as fill material in a new highway. More soil was removed from the arena and placed in a swampy area on the site in 1972. The contaminated soil at the arena was first assessed by the EPA in1982. The site was placed on the National Priority List (Superfund) in 1983.

Once the site was placed on the NPL in 1983, the interim remedy involved excavation and on-site storage of dioxin-contaminated soils pending final management. A total of 6,452 tons of dioxin-contaminated was ultimately containerized at the stables, then transported to Times Beach for incineration. After removal of dioxin-contaminated materials from interim storage at the site, buildings were decontamcouinated and sampled. Restoration of the site included backfilling with clean materials to the original grade and revegetation was completed in 1997- twenty six years later. Don’t know what became of the fill used in the highway.

Getting paid to accept soil, waste oil, or biosolids if it is not properly and completely tested could end up being a very bad deal.

PFAS refer to a group of man-made chemicals known as Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances. There are thousands of varieties of these chemicals that repel oil, grease, water, and heat. They became widely used in household products and industrial settings as early as the 1940s and have been used in firefighting foams due to their effectiveness at quickly extinguishing petroleum-based fires.

PFAS have been used to make a host of commercial products including non-stick cookware, stain-resistant carpets and furniture, water-resistant clothing, coated oil resistant paper/cardboard food packaging (like microwave popcorn and pizza boxes), and some personal care products. Our ability to test for PFAS has tremendously increased in the past two years as U.S.  EPA establish a national standard for PFAS in drinking water is informed by the best available science.

When our analytical methods were less precise and PFAS had less time to permeate our environments, we used to think that only people living near the industrial manufactures of PFAS, their industrial waste disposal sites  or airports were exposed. The ability to measure parts per trillion disabused us of that belief. We discovered that we are all exposed to PFAS in everyday life. 

According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (part of the NIH): “People are most likely exposed to these chemicals by consuming PFAS-contaminated water or food, using products made with PFAS, or breathing air containing PFAS. Because PFAS break down slowly, if at all, people and animals are repeatedly exposed to them, and blood levels of some PFAS can build up over time.”

Waste water treatment generates biosolids which became contaminated with PFAS from both residential and industrial waste. Biosolids were land applied and buried in landfills. Animals grazed on the land, food grown on the land picked up some of the PFAS and passed traces into food. People passed it onto other wastewater treatment plants and the circle widened.

The application of biosolids on agricultural land is a common tool in agriculture as they contain nutrients and other organic matter that can enhance soils and agricultural production. Land application of residuals is a widespread practice across the US and remains an approved method by the US EPA. In Maine they had been spreading biosolida on its farms and fields since the 1980s. Its application on farms has been seen as an inexpensive way to feed fields.

At last report the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has found more than 70 PFAS-contaminated farms, a handful of which have had to cease all food production. In 2022, Maine became the first state to ban land application of biosolids and the sale of compost containing biosolids, but not before the farms had to stop producing food. Only Minnesota has done as much testing for PFAS in the agricultural food chain.

So, these sites that are hauling off the dirt to build all these data centers, what were they used for previously? Where these military, industrial, or training sites? Has the soil they are hauling off been tested for all likely contaminants based on history and use?