The state warned Thursday not to eat meat from deer or wild turkeys hunted from two areas east of Waterville after tests revealed high levels of harmful forever chemicals in the muscle tissue of game animals found within a mile of land fertilized with municipal or industrial sludge.

The two new do-not-eat consumption advisory areas – one 5.4-square-mile zone on either side of Route 139 in Unity and Unity Township and one 4.3-square-mile zone straddling Route 202 in Unity, Albion, and Freedom – were based on test results from 54 deer and 55 wild turkeys.

Results showed that wildlife sampled in Unity, Thorndike, Freedom and Albion within a mile of highly contaminated soil resulted in unsafe levels of forever chemicals in turkey and deer muscle tissue, most likely from ingesting these chemicals while feeding in these contaminated areas.

Regulators didn’t publish exact contamination levels in the public advisory. Some turkeys and deer must have exceeded 180 parts per billion of perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS. PFOS is the chemical marker the state usually uses to measure forever chemical uptake in animals, fish and humans.

Federal regulators hunted the turkey and deer sampled over the spring, summer and fall of 2023. State authorities are waiting for other results that may result in additional smaller do-not-eat game advisories, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife spokesman Mark Latti said.

The agency is collaborating with the University of Maine to determine how these chemicals impact small-game animals, such as grouse or beaver. But in general, Latti said deer and turkeys are the game species most consumed by humans that are also most likely to be exposed to contaminated soils.

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Maine was one of the first states to detect forever chemicals in deer. Inland Fisheries and Wildlife issued its first consumption advisory in 2021 for deer harvested in the Fairfield area, an agricultural community near Waterville that was particularly hard hit by forever chemicals.

Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and other state agencies have issued do-not-eat advisories, and consumption limits, for several fish species landed from waters contaminated by runoff from farm fields fertilized by sewage sludge and industrial sludge. Maine also has action levels for milk, dairy, eggs and a growing list of produce.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have been used for decades in hundreds of household, industrial and consumer products, from non-stick cookware to pesticides to waterproof clothing. They are called forever chemicals because they are very slow to break down.

Exposure is known to increase the risk of some types of cancer, decrease infant and fetal growth, increase cholesterol levels, and impair the immune system, prompting Maine to phase PFAS out of products sold in Maine and ban the spreading of sludge, which contains high levels of PFAS.

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