FAIRBANKS — Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation seeks to tighten the standards for per- and polyfluoralkyl chemical pollution in a set of regulation changes up for public comment through Nov. 5.
PFAS chemicals are found in many products, including nonstick pots, waterproof fabrics and high-end ski wax.
PFAS can easily spread across property lines because they dissolve in water and move with underground water flows to pollute nearby wells.
Since 2016, Alaska has required PFAS polluters to clean up the source of contamination based on the concentration of two perfluorinated chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOA.
The regulations up for comment this month add three additional chemicals to the list of substances that require cleanup when concentrations in groundwater reach a concentration of 70 parts per trillion, which represents about 3 1/2 drops of liquid in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
And the toxicity information, even though its limited, indicates that these compounds cause adverse health affects at similar doses as PFOA and PFOS,” said Sally Schlichting, a policy and regulations manager of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in Juneau.
By making them part of the cleanup standards, the state would further require PFAS polluters to clean up the source of the chemical and to map the spread of the chemical in the groundwater.
In Fairbanks, the city government has spent more than $3 million since 2016 testing water, delivering clean water and connecting properties with contaminated drinking-water wells to city water.
It’s hard to know whether any additional homes will need to be connected to city water based on the changing state standards, said Fairbanks city engineer Robert Pristash.
In addition to the new cleanup standards for five of the chemicals, a separate standard will apply to water contaminated with a sixth PFAS, perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS), though it’s only considered harmful at much higher concentrations, 200 parts per trillion.