PROVIDENCE — As this year’s General Assembly session wraps up, lawmakers are on the cusp of passing new restrictions on two very different kinds of products that may contain hazardous per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), possibly as soon as this week.

This year is looking to be the year lawmakers ban the distribution and sale of turnout gear — the protective clothing worn by firefighters — that has PFAS intentionally added during manufacturing. If passed into law, the ban would go into effect Jan. 1, 2027.

It’s not the first year a ban on PFAS in turnout gear has been introduced. In prior years, lawmakers didn’t pass the bill due to a lack of ready alternative gear for the state’s fire departments to buy.

“We held off on turnout gear until effective alternatives are available,” said Rep. June Speakman, D-Warren. “Those alternatives for turnout gear are now available, so now is the time.”

What makes forever chemicals so useful in products such as turnout gear also makes them dangerous. The chemicals, which have long been unregulated, and only recently understood, are especially good at repelling water and oils, a feature essential to any firefighter’s gear.

But those same properties also make PFAS and their associated products highly toxic. The substances get their nickname primarily from their inability to break down in the environment, with the specific chemical bond nearly indestructible.

The version of the new PFAS ban introduced by Speakman (H5019) was passed by the House in early March, and later recommended for passage in concurrence by the Senate Committee on Environment and Agriculture on May 7.

The Senate version of the bill (S0241) passed its chamber April 10, and was voted out of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee last week, setting the stage for final passage sometime in the next few weeks.

“We’re giving municipalities two years to get this gear, I think that’s enough time,” said Paul Valletta, legislative representative for the Rhode Island State Association of Firefighters. “Now that we know all three layers of firefighters’ gear has PFAS chemicals, once we start using them and then the material breaks down, the release of them is tenfold.”

Prolonged exposure to PFAS or associated products containing PFAS has been linked to myriad health conditions, including cancer, high levels of cholesterol, hormone disruption, and impaired fertility, among others. Cancer is now the leading cause of death among firefighters.

This year’s legislation isn’t the first bill aimed at protecting firefighters and the broader public from toxic PFAS chemicals. Last year lawmakers passed a ban on firefighting foam containing PFAS that began on Jan. 1. A Department of Environmental Management report issued in fall 2023 noted that fire stations were one of six major sources of PFAS contamination in Rhode Island, primarily thanks to both turnout gear and firefighting foam.

The firefighting gear ban is not the only PFAS ban making its way to the finish line over the past few weeks of the session. Lawmakers in both chambers are also moving to pass a requirement that biosolids — essentially the physical sludge leftover from wastewater treatment — distributed or applied on lands in Rhode Island be tested for PFAS, with DEM getting the power to reject any biosolids that would potentially pose an environmental threat or risk to public health because of their PFAS content.

“There are other states that send their biosolids to other states, and my concern is we need to make sure those coming in from other states are tested for PFAS before they’re allowed to be spread on our farmland or agricultural land,” said Rep. Terri Cortvriend, D-Portsmouth, the House sponsor for H5844.

The law likely wouldn’t impact the state’s 19 wastewater treatment facilities directly. Rhode Island’s facilities originally sent their sludge to the Synagro sludge incinerator in Woonsocket, but according to Cortvriend, since the incinerator shut down the facilities have been shipping it out of state instead.

How often are agricultural landowners importing biosolid waste and spreading it on their lands? Records from DEM show only seven distributors of biosolids with an active permit in Rhode Island, one of which is the town of Bristol, which operates its own composting facility.

Those distributors aren’t giving it to farms, however; most biosolids in Rhode Island aren’t spread on farm crops, but instead on turf farms, or are used by landscapers looking for a fertilizer for yard projects.

While the amount of biosolids spread on agricultural lands is small, the risk for PFAS contamination is not. Last fall, as the hunting season was in full swing, Maine officials issued a “do not eat” advisory to hunters because samples of wildlife tissue, from turkeys and deer specifically, turned up high levels of PFAS chemicals.

“The advisory areas encompass areas that have been contaminated by high levels of PFAS through the spreading of municipal and/or industrial sludge that contained PFAS,” the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife noted in an October press release. “Deer and turkey feeding in these contaminated areas have ingested these chemicals and now have PFAS in their meat and organs.”

The House passed H5844 on May 1, with the Senate’s environment committee then voting for passage in concurrence, setting the legislation for final passage later this session.