Eternal chemicals

PFAS alert in St. Gallen

The PFAS concentration was particularly high in beef.

(Bild: ©contrastwerkstatt - stock.adobe.com)

In the canton of St. Gallen, meat sales were stopped in five businesses after high levels of the "perpetuity chemical" PFAS were detected during inspections. The problem is also known in Vorarlberg.

Soil contaminated with PFAS was discovered on Eggersrieter-Höhe back in 2021. Subsequently, the entire canton of St. Gallen was investigated - and several more contaminated areas were found. The PFAS hotspots include Altenrhein and St. Margarethen, two municipalities that border directly on Vorarlberg. In the hotspots, the chemical was detected in spring water, cow's milk and beef, among other things - the concentration of the latter was so high that five farms are now no longer allowed to sell their meat.

Fertilizing with sewage sludge
The contaminated soils are ultimately a testimony to past environmental sins, as the chemical, which only degrades extremely slowly, probably entered the soil through fertilization with sewage sludge - this practice has been banned since 2006. Although PFAS does not pose an acute health risk, the effects can be fatal in the long term - studies suggest a harmful effect on the liver, kidneys and immune system, among other things.

This raises the question of how to get the "eternal chemical" out of the ground again. The sobering answer: by spending a lot of money and remediating the soil over decades. Bruno Damann, Head of the St. Gallen Department of Health, is therefore calling for nothing less than a "national action plan", especially as the problem also exists in other cantons.

How badly contaminated is the soil in Vorarlberg?
PFAS is also an issue in Vorarlberg, where the level of contamination is significantly higher than in the rest of Austria. SPÖ Member of Parliament Martin Staudinger has therefore submitted a question to parliament. Among other things, he wants to know the exact extent of the contamination and what measures are being taken to prevent it from spreading.

State Health Councillor Martina Rüscher (ÖVP) emphasized in an initial statement that no abnormal PFAS values have been registered in Vorarlberg in the relevant food tests to date. In addition, a monitoring project by the Vorarlberg Environmental Institute is currently underway to determine the PFAS content in Vorarlberg's flowing waters - and there have been no worrying results so far. "As PFAS are fundamentally highly relevant, the Institute for Environment and Food Safety will continue its investigations consistently," emphasizes Rüscher.