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The word “topsoil” used to have a special meaning. Not anymore.

In the general shrinking of the mind process that we have been going through, as we have fed our brains less useful information while giving it more useless junk, somewhere along the way, we began assuming that good soil was just any old pile of dirt.

If you tested what most landscapers are calling “topsoil” today, you would most likely find it’s nothing more than fill dirt. True topsoil is the top layer of soil, yes, but it’s what’s in the soil that matters. For topsoil to be considered good, it must contain a high concentration of organic matter and microorganisms with no detectable chemicals.

Once, with a high degree of trust, we ordered a truckload of screened topsoil to be delivered to the farm for use in building flower beds. I say trust because we used a well-known local business, thinking that they valued their reputation. When the driver dumped the load, my first thought was that someone had gotten their bucket loader too close to the gravel pile.

When I questioned the driver, he said it was indeed screened topsoil. He said it with a straight face, too. Almost like he was thinking, “You’re not from around here, so what do you know?” I told him I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, to which he replied, “I just drive the truck.”

You can also buy “topsoil” in a plastic bag at your favorite garden center or big box store, but even then, you have to read the list of ingredients. Most people just grab bags of the cheapest stuff and take it home, thinking what reputable business would sell me anything less than the real deal? The cheap bagged topsoil is mostly dirt with ground-up foreign materials.

As we enter the new Twilight Zone of “deregulation,” we head toward the field of the unknown. Perhaps soon, we will look at the list of ingredients and find only “Mind Your Own Business.”

Look at what’s happening in South Carolina. For decades, through a government process best known as “ignore what any business does,” farmers used “free” fertilizer that consisted of textile mill sludge. What could go wrong with that cocktail, right?

Today, nearly 10,000 acres of farmland are contaminated with the toxic chemicals known as PFAS. If you are one of those folks who condemns scientists, then it won’t matter to you that there is evidence that consuming PFAS has been linked to cancer, hormone disruption, liver damage and developmental issues.

South Carolina is now begging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare that farmland a Superfund site. At the same time, the DOGE chainsaw has hacked away at the EPA’s staffing and funding. In case you played hooky the day the teacher talked about this, being designated a Superfund site means that when there is no viable responsible party, the Superfund gives the EPA the money to clean up a contaminated site.

The chainsaw has been at work on the Superfund bank account as well. No surprise there.

So wish the state of South Carolina luck. They need it. Meanwhile, don’t buy any topsoil from that 10,000 acres.

Larry McDermott is a local retired farmer/journalist. Reach him at hardscrabblehollow@gmail.com