ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Investigators believe they have identified a potential source of the groundwater contamination that has threatened dozens of household water systems near a Perdue Farms soybean plant in Salisbury, MD, with “forever chemicals.”
Consultants are pointing to firefighting foam as a likely cause, the poultry giant said in an April 17 statement. The company said a fire-suppression system in service in 2019 discharged foam on the property but didn’t specify how much was released at the time.
Forever chemicals, as they’re called, linger in the environment and human blood for many years. They are a group of more than 12,000 chemicals, officially called PFAS, or per– and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They have been used for decades in a wide variety of products, such as firefighting foam, carpeting and food packaging.
Experts have linked PFAS exposure, even in trace amounts, to certain cancers, high cholesterol, liver damage, decreased fertility, developmental delays and weakened immune systems, among other health problems.
The Maryland Department of the Environment detected PFAS in wastewater at the Perdue facility in September 2023 as part of a statewide campaign to test potential hot spots. But neither the state nor Perdue notified the public until about a year after the initial discovery.
The matter is now the subject of a class-action lawsuit. In the meantime, MDE has designated Perdue as the party responsible for the cleanup.
Perdue officials say that well-water testing is nearly complete, having been conducted at 97% of properties that have requested them. The company has been paying for and installing PFAS treatment systems in the affected homes and expects to complete those efforts by the end of spring.