We have good news!

Dear Friends,
You may be following us on social media and know something about our PFAS contamination situation. We have been waiting for more results and finally got some back! We were waiting on Clovercrest Farm milk results to buy clean cows and their test came back clean, non-detect on all 28 compounds! We picked up 10 new girls on Thursday and have milk in the farm stand again! 

More good news our eggs, lamb, and pork are also clean (again non-detect on all 28 compounds), so we have eggs, lamb, and pork available in the farm stand too! We are sending pigs and lambs to the butcher as well, so let me know if you want a side of pork or a whole lamb.

We are still waiting on beef and veal results. Some results are coming in faster than others. We continue to wait and will let you know when we have more info. If you have meat in your freezer, please keep holding the beef and veal, you can eat the pork and lamb, yay!

Below I’ve written out the whole story for those that haven’t heard what we are going through. As always, I am happy to answer any questions and you can reach out to me anytime. Thank you for all your support and sticking with us!

Best, Katia & the Misty Brook Farm Team. (Baa, Moo, Oink, Cluck!)

These are some of the new girls, welcome to Misty Brook!

PS If you are concerned about our contaminated cows, they are still here and we are milking them every day and dumping the milk. Milking them is the best way to detox the cows and we will keep them for as long as it takes to clean them up. 

The Whole Story
In 2021 it came to our attention that PFAS contamination in soils could be an issue, so we started testing soils and hay on the home farm. These results were good, but when our neighbors well water tested high at the beginning of the year, we decided to test our water and our milk. On January 21st 2022 we sent out well water, milk, and purchased feed samples to be tested for PFAS levels. When the results came back and our milk was high in PFOS, we immediately pulled all our products (milk, meat, & eggs) off the store shelves. We care about your health and want to offer you only the highest quality foods, so we were heart broken to find out we had been selling contaminated milk! Fortunately our well water tested clean and the bought in hay we tested was the culprit. We only fed some of this hay in December and January, so the contamination period was relatively short. We later found out that the state had been testing our milk earlier in 2021 and it had tested good. 

When we discovered the milk contamination we immediately sent out tests on eggs, lamb, pork, and beef. All of this testing has been voluntary and is not required by anyone. We chose to do the testing because we care. PFAS tests cost an average of $500 each. The state came out in late February to take samples of everything, milk, meats, grains, hay, and manure. We are still waiting on results. 

PFAS are called “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment, but they do move around. We fed only about 35 bales of bought in organic hay to 50 cows and that was enough to contaminate them and the milk they produce. The hay picked up contamination from the field it was grown on and that field was contaminated by sludge that was spread about 20 years ago. This was the first time we purchased hay from these fields. Needless to say we won’t be buying any more hay from those fields and we will be testing everything we buy in going forward.

We continue to milk our contaminated herd of cows as this is the best way for them to detox. It will take months, maybe even a year for these cows to become clean again. They are part of our family too, so we won’t give up on them. We will continue to care for them as we always have and their milk will be dumped until it no longer contains PFAS. The state is helping us with testing now, but have not yet passed a program for financially supporting farmers in our situation. 

We are working every day to raise awareness on PFAS. These chemicals haven’t been designated hazardous by the federal government, yet they have been shown to cause reduced immune function and cancer. PFAS are in so may things including fire fighting foam, non-stick cook wear, cosmetics, food packaging, textiles, and anything grease, water, or stain resistant. We need people to be looking out for them, stop using them, and asking for food and water that is clean and healthy. Together we can make a difference.

Thank you for reading this long email to the end! Best, Katia.