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For PFAS in biosolids, 2025 was the year statehouses stepped decisively into the vacuum. While federal policy is evolving, state and local governments are rapidly redrawing the rules for land application, testing and oversight of biosolids that contain forever chemicals.
Earlier trailblazing laws in Maine and Connecticut set the stage. Maine’s 2022 statute banned the land application, sale, and distribution of sludge-derived products, effectively ending the use of biosolids as fertilizer in the state. Connecticut followed with a 2024 ban on the use or sale of PFAS-containing biosolids or wastewater sludge as soil amendments, closing the door on PFAS-laden fertilizers as of October 1, 2024.
In 2025, other jurisdictions moved quickly.
Rhode Island enacted one of the year’s most consequential biosolids laws. House Bill 5844 and companion Senate Bill 650, signed in June 2025, require any operator seeking approval to distribute or land-apply biosolids to test those materials quarterly for PFAS and submit results to the Department of Environmental Management. Sampling begins in the final quarter of 2025, with regulators empowered to use those results in permitting decisions. This is one of the first statutes to make PFAS biosolids testing an ongoing legal obligation.
New York has become a focal point of local and state-level action. Albany County adopted a 90-day moratorium in January 2025 on the use of biosolid fertilizers on farms, later extended multiple times while the county investigates potential health and environmental impacts and tracks state and federal regulation of PFAS in biosolids. The Town of Guilderland subsequently adopted its own moratorium on the sale or use of sewage sludge and biosolids fertilizers. At the state level, proposed legislation would establish a five-year moratorium on land application of biosolids and require rigorous PFAS testing and public reporting, reflecting growing concern from legislators, farmers, and environmental groups.
These actions sit within a broader surge of PFAS legislation in 2025. More than 350 PFAS-related bills have been introduced across dozens of states this year, with many targeting not only consumer products and firefighting foam but also biosolids, pesticides, and wastewater management. The trajectory is clear: states are increasingly unwilling to treat land-applied sludge as benign when PFAS contamination is in play.
For municipalities, wastewater utilities, farmers and residents, the practical message is that the legal center of gravity for PFAS in biosolids is shifting toward the states, but anchored by evolving federal science and liability frameworks. State testing mandates and moratoria are redefining day-to-day operations, while EPA’s 2025 risk assessment and CERCLA decisions shape long-term responsibility for cleanup and compensation.
At Napoli Shkolnik, we are already litigating these issues on the ground, including representing farmers and landowners in Texas whose fields and water supplies were impacted by land-applied biosolids, alongside other PFAS matters across the country. That experience mapping historic sludge use, tracing contamination pathways and pursuing recovery from upstream polluters informs how we advise municipalities, wastewater utilities, and agricultural stakeholders as they navigate rapidly changing state requirements.