In accordance with Section 335 of the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, the Department of Defense is required to advise farmers of the risk of PFAS contamination of water sources.  Over 4,000 agricultural operations have received a notification with 400 new advisories issued in a recent update.  States affected included South Carolina, California, Washington and Nevada.

The obligation of the Department of Defense is to notify all farmers within a mile of a military base if any of three PFAS compounds are present in ground water adjacent to the base or could be hydrologically linked to a local source of agricultural or drinking water.

In addition to the use of fire-fighting foam and industrial processes, PFAS contamination can occur from spreading sewage sludge as a fertilizer.  The three major PFAS compounds referred to as “forever chemicals” can accumulate in livestock resulting in violative levels of contaminants in milk and presumably eggs.