The US Environmental Protection Agency has known for decades it could have a PFAS problem on its hands, and now hundreds of communities across the US are finding the chemicals in their water.
That’s just one case; Department of Defense and Northeastern University data tally 172 known contaminated sites, and those numbers do not account for contaminated public water systems, which the Environmental Working Group estimates could add up to over 1,500 additional sites.
And they are likely contaminating the water supplies of tens of millions of people in the US.
PFAS contamination cases outside the US—particularly in Australia—are also beginning to emerge.
The health risks of PFAS exposure At this point, most people in the US have been exposed to chemicals in the PFAS family.
The compounds leach into the water supply from sites where PFAS industries dumped their manufacturing waste, or where firefighting foam is allowed to seep into the ground.
For example, Sharon Lerner at the Intercept recently reported that 3M, makers of Scotchguard and firefighting foam made from PFOS and PFOA, knew by the 1970s that the compounds were harmful to people’s health and accumulating in people’s blood, and yet continued manufacturing the compounds and withheld the information from the US Environmental Protection Agency until turning over documents and ceasing production in 2000.
Why isn’t the government doing anything about PFAS?
This year, in January, EPA and White House staffers attempted to block publication of a US Department of Health and Human Services study that showed PFAS could harm human health at exposure levels far below EPA’s current recommended thresholds.
Water supplies near at least 126 military bases across the US have been found to be highly contaminated with PFAS.