More than 50 Maine farms have confirmed PFAS contamination linked to sewage sludge application, and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree wants EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to explain, in writing and by November 16, 2026, why the agency has shelved the regulatory step that would restrict the practice nationwide.

Pingree (D-Maine), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, laid out the demand in a letter to Zeldin. Her core complaint is procedural: EPA issued its Draft Sewage Sludge Risk Assessment for PFOA and PFOS in January 2025 — a document she calls a necessary precursor to enforceable limits on land application — but instead of finalizing it, the agency released draft guidance this summer that leaves its regulatory intentions unresolved.

The public comment period on that guidance closes October 5.

What does the letter actually ask for?

Pingree posed six questions, each demanding documentation rather than assurances:

• Whether EPA intends to finalize the January 2025 draft risk assessment for PFOA and PFOS in sewage sludge;
• If not, how that decision is documented and what scientific review supported it;
• How EPA plans to prevent additional land contamination and protect farmers from the exposure pathways specific to land application of biosolids;
• What the agency's next steps are toward proposing enforceable regulatory limits on land application;
• Whether EPA will expand its focus beyond PFOA and PFOS to other PFAS compounds;
• How the agency is coordinating with USDA to help farmers, ranchers and rural communities manage PFAS impacts.

Each question goes to the material stream at issue: sewage sludge, marketed as biosolids and spread as fertilizer, carrying per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances onto agricultural land, crops and water.

Why Maine anchors the fight

Maine's experience frames the letter. The state ran an extensive investigation into PFAS contamination of farmland and documented contamination on more than 50 farms tied to sewage sludge application. Farmers there spread the material as fertilizer on the strength of government assurances that it was safe.

Pingree's letter puts the sequence bluntly.

"Maine farmers have had their livelihoods disrupted due to PFAS contamination, which originated in sewage sludge that was spread as fertilizer by farmers who were told by the government that it was safe to use," she wrote. "Unfortunately, this sewage sludge contained PFAS, leading to contamination of agricultural land, products, and water."

The letter also cites the health stakes: PFAS chemicals have been linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental harms, and weakened immune systems. Farmers in the affected areas have lost income, faced threats to their livelihoods and experienced health problems.

Maine is not unique, Pingree notes — the contamination pathway exists in every state where biosolids reach farmland — but the state has led on testing, cleanup and research. What it cannot do on its own is set the federal enforceable limits that would govern the stream at a national scale.

Guidance versus regulation

The distinction between the two EPA documents is the crux of the dispute. The January 2025 draft risk assessment, once finalized, would have moved the agency toward restricting application of PFAS-contaminated sludge on farmland — a regulatory track with legal force behind it.

The draft guidance EPA released this summer, titled "Draft Guidance for Reducing Risk from PFOA and PFOS in Biosolids," does not carry that weight. Pingree's characterization: it "leaves regulatory next steps unclear and farmers in limbo."

That gap — voluntary risk-reduction language sitting where enforceable limits should be — is what the six questions are designed to force into the open. The letter asks EPA to state on the record whether the risk assessment will be finalized, what science justified any decision to abandon it, and when the agency will propose actual limits on land application.

The exposure problem for farmers

Pingree's letter draws a distinction between general population exposure and the position of farmers who work contaminated ground. Land application of sewage sludge creates what she calls "additional, unique exposure pathways" — direct contact with the material and with soil it has amended, over time, at the point of production.

Her warning on scale: "Without additional action by EPA, farmers across the country will continue to be at heightened risk from PFAS exposure from land application of biosolids."

The letter also presses on scope of chemistry. The draft risk assessment covers two compounds — PFOA and PFOS. Pingree asks whether EPA plans to address PFAS contamination beyond that pair, a question that determines how much of the contaminant load in the sludge stream any future rule would actually capture.

What happens next

Two dates now govern the file. The comment period on EPA's draft guidance closes October 5. Pingree's questions carry a response deadline of November 16, 2026.

Between those dates sits the decision that matters for the sludge stream: whether EPA finalizes the January 2025 risk assessment and begins the rulemaking path toward enforceable limits on land application of biosolids, or whether the guidance document becomes the agency's final word. The answers Zeldin owes by November 2026 will signal which track the federal government is on — and whether the biosolids market keeps operating under voluntary risk management or moves under binding limits that farmers, wastewater utilities and land applicators will all have to price in.