Judy Hearn was 4 years old when Perdue came to town.

She remembers her father, one of the poultry plant’s first employees, being forced to change his clothes on the back porch to keep the stench of chicken feed outside their Salisbury home. Frank Perdue, the soon-to-be multimillion-dollar chicken magnate who would lead the company for the next 30 years, was just another coworker. It was 1958. The business had one feeding mill.

Now, Perdue Foods is one of the largest poultry producers in the country and contributes $1.6 billion to the Maryland economy each year. At 70, Hearn has never known a world without the company. She’s grown used to the soybean dust that kicks up her allergies in the fall, the food trucks barreling down Zion Road and the tanks of grain towering over her property. She’s been proud to be a small part of Perdue’s presence.

She never imagined that one day she’d grow to fear it.

Hearn is one of hundreds of Salisbury residents grappling with the discovery of “forever chemicals” in the groundwater surrounding Perdue’s soybean processing plant, which is directly across the street from her home. The contaminants belong to a group of chemicals known as PFAS, an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

National health experts have been pushing to regulate the chemicals that in the last year were classified as “hazardous” and “potentially carcinogenic.” Up until April, there was no enforceable standard by the Environmental Protection Agency for how much of the compounds could constitute a legal liability and a matter of public safety to clean up.

At a Thursday night town hall, at least 100 concerned community members in attendance learned that tests of private wells on people’s properties show a growing number of residents have been drinking the contaminated water, per an early investigation conducted by the Baird Mandalas Brockstedt & Federico law firm, which filed a class action lawsuit against the chicken plant on Oct. 11.

Though attorney Deborah Jennings advised the crowd that no forever chemicals are safe to drink, the amount discovered at some Salisbury households blows past the EPA’s enforced drinking-limit. The head of the Peggy Branch river, which feeds into private wells through a stream, registered up to 1,370 parts per trillion PFOS, or perfluorooctane sulfonate, despite the legal limit being 4 parts per trillion.

Overexposure to PFAS has the potential to cause kidney and testicular cancers, exacerbate autoimmune diseases and lead to developmental disorders in children, among other health defects, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

In Salisbury, there’s no escaping the stench of chicken feed or the blue, white and yellow Perdue logo. The area’s business school and baseball stadium, as well as scholarships, grants, partnerships with food banks, housing assistance, green energy programs, and even aid sent to help rebuild a disaster-struck North Carolina following Hurricane Helene, bear Perdue’s name.

Most of the dozen residents who spoke with The Banner said they don’t see Perdue as an evil corporation, but were fearful of the degree to which the contamination may have occurred and the lack of transparency surrounding the potential for harm to neighboring areas.

“I don’t want to crucify Perdue,” said Susan Wood, a resident living about a quarter-mile north of the mill, at the town hall.

As the industry’s grown, Wood said, so has the town and the income of local farmers who contract with Perdue to grow chickens. Wood said Perdue tested the well she used for drinking water but not the one for livestock, and was worried about the pollution affecting animals and crops. “All of these industries are supposed to be monitored. … Has no agency reviewed their safety?”

Maryland Department of Environment spokesman Jay Apperson shared that Perdue’s wastewater test results in 2023 showed elevated levels of forever chemicals and additional testing in January involving groundwater drawn from wells showed similarly high levels in the 1000s of parts per trillion. Further testing in late August involved Perdue drilling more wells closer to the perimeter of its near 200-acre property, which found that PFHxS, or perfluorohexanesulfonic acid, measured up to 1,300 ppt in some samples, when the drinking limit is 10 ppt. The tests were done in an effort to be proactive, as the substance is still an emerging area of concern, Apperson said.

In the last week, the department classified Perdue as a “responsible person” in the groundwater contamination, per an ongoing investigation. The business is currently offering well testing to 550 households that fall within the plant’s projected area of those affected — about a half-mile radius around the soybean facility.

That area is considerably smaller than the one mapped out by attorney Philip Federico and his legal team. “We’re going to keep testing [people’s wells] until we find clean water,” he said. His firm is inviting any community member who lived in the area for at least six months since 1985 to join their lawsuit, a case he said evolved from a lack of governmental compliance and corporate responsibility.

In the last five years, Perdue’s Salisbury facilities have faced repeated financial penalties for violating environmental standards, including for $12,000 in 2021, $8,000 the following year, and $1.5 million dollars in 2024, according to the EPA website. In August, the company settled a lawsuit related to air pollution with the Maryland Department of the Environment for $12 million.

Andrea Staub, a spokeswoman for Perdue Farms, said Friday that the company is working to prioritize the safety of the community and will “do the right thing.” Staub added that the situation is still emerging and the source of the pollutants has yet to be determined.

The company hired outside experts to test wells and 200 samples have been collected so far, Staub said. Properties with elevated concentration that exceeds EPA standards will be able to get drinking water treatment systems installed by Perdue at no cost, she added.

The residents who spoke to The Banner said they never felt concerned about living in close proximity to the Perdue factories until September, when the company sent letters notifying them of the contaminated groundwater. The Hearns family said their water is scheduled to be sampled next week — a test they’ve waited about a month for. The uncertainty around the pollution has muddied what used to feel like a relatively straightforward living: Is dust in the air causing allergies or cancer? Why did four of our horses die? Is it safe to raise the cattle, or eat the deer, or grow banana peppers, pick tomatoes, plant a new strawberry bush?

“Is anything safe?” Judy Hearn asked.

“Perdue’s always there,” said Amaia Mumford, who grew up in Salisbury and had her water tested for pollutants hours before the town hall. “[Perdue] reminds me of home. … We’re a small town, we don’t have much.”

The business is one of the largest employers in the area, according to City of Salisbury spokesman Shawn Yonker. Perdue employed more than 15,000 Salisbury residents as of 2019.

It’s difficult to find a town resident without a connection to the company. Tracy Montefusco of Long Island moved to Salisbury three years ago to live with her sister Brenda. Brenda and her boyfriend, Rick Murray, both used to work for Perdue.

All three have been drinking the bottled water delivered by Perdue for the last few weeks. “We’re nervous being so close to the plant and if the water’s bad,” Tracy said, adding that she already suffers from an autoimmune disease. “But who could afford to leave?”

Roger Truitt, an environmental expert working with the firm, told those at the town hall he believed the contamination may have emerged from the plant’s efforts to move into refining soybeans, an operation that began at the Salisbury plant in the ’80s. To treat the resulting wastewater for forever chemicals, he said, “they’d have to upgrade the plant at a huge expense.”

A resident shouted back: “Do you think our lives are worth it?”