Residents, like Rick Wawrzeniak, now find themselves dealing with otherwise difficult-to-explain medical conditions like nonalcoholic fatty liver disease or chronic hives. The source appears to be a Perdue Agribusiness soybean plant that has been discharging PFAS and other PFOA compounds into a stream known as Peggy’s Branch for years. The stream runs through Wawrzeniak’s neighborhood. Perdue has also allegedly sprayed PFAS-contaminated wastewater on about 40 acres of crop land and 25 acres of forest. PFAS chemicals have also reportedly leached from wastewater stored in lagoons at the plant.
The contamination is now the subject of a class action lawsuit filed in Maryland’s federal District Court. The problem of PFAS contamination is much larger, however, than just the story of Salisbury.
Not just chickens
Several subsidiaries of Perdue Foods, including Perdue Farms and Perdue Agribusiness, operate a 250-acre industrial complex northeast of Salisbury. The complex includes a grain storage facility, feed mill, soybean extraction plant, an oilseeds refinery, chicken hatcheries, and marigold greenhouses. The facilities generate roughly 175,000 gallons of wastewater every day. The water is either discharged into the stream, used for irrigation or stored for future use.
In 2024, Maryland’s Department of the Environment (MDE) detected highly elevated levels of PFAS in this agricultural wastewater, ranging from 1300 to 1370 parts per trillion (ppt). The EPA has set safe drinking water levels for these PFAS compounds at between 4 ppt and 10 ppt.
Meanwhile, Salisbury residents, who have lived there for decades have begun to suffer from a strange collection of symptoms. Rachael Chaney, a 45-year-old mother of two, is allergic to her own tears. She has now been diagnosed with lupus, an incurable disease that leads to joint swelling, fatigue and a host of other problems.
Residents fight back
Wawrzeniak, now president of Heather Glen homeowners’ association, has said in an interview, “I’m trying to be patient because I suspect certainly Perdue is taking steps to try to address the problem.” He has accepted Perdue’s offer to have bottled water delivered regularly to his home free of charge. The company also has vowed to install whole-house filtration systems on any home with elevated PFAS levels. As of mid-November 2024, the company and MDE agreed to expand the testing zone westward, increasing the number of affected properties from 600 to more than 900.
Salisbury is not all that different from other communities. More than 25 percent of Americans living in the continental U.S. might rely on groundwater with detectable concentrations of PFAS according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey study.
The link to illness
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate) and PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) are manufactured chemical compounds containing fluorine and carbon, a combination which makes them nearly indestructible. They have been credibly linked to:
- liver damage;
- delayed puberty in girls;
- adverse birth outcomes;
- thyroid cancer;
- testicular cancer;
- high cholesterol;
- reduced immune function;
- breast cancer;
- renal disease; and
- lower bone mineral density.
Can we talk about the Bay?
Wawrzeniak tells a compelling story about himself and his community. But there is another much larger character in this story. It’s the Chesapeake Bay.
The Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, stretching nearly 200 miles and fed by over 150 rivers and streams (including Peggy’s Branch) that drain a vast watershed covering six states and the District of Columbia. It loops around 11,684 miles of shoreline, and in 2010, more than 17 million people lived in the Bay watershed area.
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It is home to over 2,700 species, including crab, striped bass and oysters, adding up to more than 500 million pounds of seafood each year. However, the striped bass caught in a pound net in Cornfield Harbor near the mouth of the Potomac River had 23,100 ppt of nine different PFAS. The crab and oyster from St. Inigoes Creek, a tributary of the St. Mary’s River, had 6,650 ppt of eight PFAS and 2,070 ppt of five PFAS, respectively. Like the people who live in the vast watershed area and like the Bay, itself, blue crabs are increasingly showing signs of PFAS contamination.
The cost of and mechanisms for cleaning up the Bay and preserving the seafood industry are even harder to estimate than the challenges of cleaning up Salisbury’s water supply and are not part of the class action lawsuit. Nonetheless, they will eventually play a role in a much larger story.
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