Community Perspective FAIRBANKS — On May 22 and 23, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held a “Leadership Summit” in Washington, D.C., about PFAS contamination in drinking water.
Many Fairbanks residents are affected by contamination of their drinking water caused by dispersion of aqueous firefighting foams in groundwater plumes from Eielson Air Force Base, the Regional Fire Training Center, the Fairbanks International Airport and Fort Wainwright.
PFAS contamination in drinking water now affects over 16 million people in 33 states.
Patrick Breysse, director of the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Environmental Health, described the contamination of drinking water by PFAS chemicals as “one of the most seminal public health challenges for the next decades.” Community members affected by PFAS contamination were excluded from the EPA Summit that included primarily government officials and the chemical industry.
Just the week before, news broke that the White House and EPA deliberately suppressed a government study by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry that found that EPA’s recommended health advisory limit of 70 parts per trillion for PFAS chemicals to be as much as six times too high.
A White House official stated that the release of this assessment would be “a public relations nightmare.” The report indicates that levels of these chemicals that EPA previously thought to be “safe” may cause harm.
Neither the EPA nor Alaska have established enforceable standards for drinking water.
Although some people who have levels of PFAS in their water at levels greater than 70 ppt are provided with an alternative water source, those with levels even slightly below that threshold are afforded no safety for their families even though exposures at much lower levels are known to cause harm to human health.
In the absence of federal action, other states are taking strong measures to protect the health of their residents by cleaning up current contamination, establishing health protective drinking water standards, taking legal action against manufacturers and preventing future pollution by requiring the use of PFAS-free firefighting foams.
In the meantime, our state’s inaction is costly and causing harm while people continue to be exposed to dangerous levels of pollution in their drinking water.