Scientists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station working on a PFAS project on tribal land in Maine have had their funding cut and the project shut down by the Environmental Protection Agency.
In a statement to the Maine Morningstar, the EPA said they are reviewing their grant programs — and the Biden Administration had forced “radical DEI programs” on the agency. The statement said that’s against its core mission of protecting human health and the environment.
Dr. Sara Nason, who is part of the research, said the team is confused because the project met all of EPA’s current PFAS research criteria. The study was looking at contaminated land owned by the MikMaq Tribe.
“We put in this research proposal to combine some field work up in Maine looking at farms that have been potentially contaminated as well as culturally important plants and animals and food sources for the tribe and then combining that with some more technical PFAS detection method research here at the Ag station and at the University of Virginia,” Nason said.
Nason said, despite the stop work order, the Tribe and farmers are carrying on.
“Representatives from the tribe up in Maine are continuing to collect their samples as they planned and still growing crops and the farm is possibly contaminated and still storing fiddleheads and potentially later in the season Moose samples,” Nason said. “They’re going to be stored in the freezers. So, in the event we are able to continue work and get funding back, we’ll still be able to do some it.”
They’ve filed an appeal to see if the $1.5 million in funding can be restored.
