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July 10, 2024
Editor, The News-Gazette: In early summer a year ago, News-Gazette published a letter to the editor about the dangers of PFAS/PFOS. Nothing happened. This April, G. Sukow submitted a more detailed letter, explaining the problems with “forever chemicals,” asking the Farm Bureau to encourage farmers not to dump PFAS/OScontaminated sewage sludge/ landfill products on Rockbridge farms.
Rockbridge Conservation has done serious work with Virginia Tech and other parties, having already conversed with the Board of Supervisors, the Lexington City Council and other interest groups on the matter of these chemicals … And last month, 15 farms ordering these toxic substances summoned the commercial enterprises acquiring and selling these poisons to deliver another load to 13 farms in Rockbridge County. Is this the definition of doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome?
Although “better late than never” at the federal level, the PFAS/OS issue has finally aroused the public’s attention to the serious health hazards offered by the more than 2,200 chemical versions of this triumph of industrial chemistry. The butter packaging industry, their retailers, like Kroger and others, have been quick to offer “two for one” in order to dump existing inventories using PFAS engineered butter paper that keeps the wrap from sticking to the butter block. Corporate lawyers, no doubt, played a key role in this business decision.
The political cost for the inaction of the Rockbridge County public officials whom are pledged to act in the public interest and the Farm Bureau who wants us to love our farmers have thrown a monkey wrench into the public’s confidence, something they may come to regret as the PFAS/OS juggernaut sails across the republic. DON HENKE Goshen
