[CPEO-MEF] PFAS, NATIVE PEOPLE: "The plan to use hemp to solve Maine’s ‘forever chemicals’ problem hits a major snag"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

The plan to use hemp to solve Maine’s ‘forever chemicals’ problem hits a major snag

by Melissa Lizotte
Bangor Daily News (ME)
November 30, 2024

LIMESTONE, Maine — An Aroostook County tribe has found that industrial hemp plants will extract so-called forever chemicals from contaminated soil on land it owns at the former Loring Air Force Base.

There’s one problem: no one can figure out what to do with the hemp.

“There hasn’t been a way to get the PFAS out of the plants without it going back into the environment,” said Mi’kmaq Nation Vice Chief Richard Silliboy. 

Finding a way to take per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, out of contaminated hemp plants without unintentionally releasing them into the air is the next step in the tribe’s effort to remediate 650 acres of polluted land the U.S. government turned over to it 15 years ago. 

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/11/30/aroostook/aroostook-environment/hemp-maine-forever-chemicals-problem-major-flaw-joam40zk0w/

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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