I've alluded to the fact that I spent many years working on a nation-wide(US) water testing project once and that I don't own the results, they were never published, and I can't specifically give away those results that I don't own. All of this recent talk about PFAs in water is absolutely killing me. This new water testing is going to take place over the next three years, and it's important to note that it's *only* talking about a handful of chemicals.

I've found that particularly US-based people really think their water is great and vastly overestimate how great it is. It comes out of the tap, you drink it and you don't die of waterborne illnesses. Woohoo. Really, it's an accomplishment.

But until you spend time in a water testing lab you don't really begin to realize how much isn't tested for in that water you drink and bathe in. It's just not possible.

People would ask me all the time "How do I get my water tested for everything?" You can't. Think of the story recently about how many chemicals are in plastics, for instance. 16,000-ish and over 4,000 that are potentially hazardous. Basically zero of those are tested for in any way whatsoever. To get something tested, someone has to care enough that it's there in the first place. Then someone has to create testing procedures and standards. Then there has to be a market for that test.

Let's JUST talk about PFAs. You know how many there are? Ballpark is ~15,000 different PFAs. You know how many are tested in this new EPA program? 25.

Now that we've established that, just how likely is it that testing will find PFAs in YOUR water in the US?

https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/

Pretty likely.

While I can't really talk about what states are likely to find if they honestly look, what I do talk about, and have for probably 20 years now, is what I did when I realized what's really in your water. I put in a whole home filter outside of our home to filter out a lot of stuff for showering and hand washing. No one so much as cleans vegetables here unless the water comes from the reverse osmosis system in our kitchen. Drinking water, ice, pasta water, fruit and veggie washing water, etc all comes from that.

I'm very sensitive to the fact that not everyone can do all of that. It's a step in the right direction that the EPA is beginning to do something about this, but it's far later than it should be and doesn't go nearly far enough. All I can say is that you should demand better, and not just about PFAs, but all contaminants in your water supply.

And before anyone asks, yes, the spring water on the homestead is about as clean as you can find anymore. Under 10 TDS and no contaminants that I've found to date. Again, can't test for everything even if you wanted to and had a million dollars to throw at it. It was a major selling point on the property for us.

Someone asked me if I could source some of my info on PFAs, and the EPAs decisions, and that's entirely fair. Anyone who reads my posts knows I generally put links to everything. I *may* have been rage posting, while simultaneously trying to be careful about what I was saying, about this yesterday.

First - Are there really 15,000 different PFAs?

It's a pretty widely cited number, and I'm going to admit that I don't know exactly how many there are from a direct source. I think you'll find that number cited any time you look it up.

In lieu of having a source for that info specifically, here's a paper on what the class of chemicals is comprised of:

https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ieam.258

Second - I keep reading that only 6 PFAs are in the program, but you said 25.

I'm a lab chemist at heart. When I said 25 that's how many are in the *testing* protocol.

".In December 2019, EPA published Method
533, which includes a total of 25 PFAS (14 of the 18 PFAS
in 537.1 plus an additional 11 “short chain” PFAS) and
specifies isotope dilution quantitation."

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-01/documents/pfas_methods-sampling_tech_brief_7jan2020-update.pdf

The limits that are imposed don't even cover all of those 25, but just the 6 *categories* that you see being reported, which are only comprised of 5 actual PFAs, and a mixture thereof:

PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and "Mixtures containing two or more" of those first 5.

https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas

Third - Is this a serious attempt to do something? Or just some placation?

Putting my words down carefully, the EPA is regulating 5 chemicals in a category of over 15,000 in which over 1,400 of them are known to be in common use as of 5 years ago.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/em/d0em00291g

I'm glad to see some other sources have picked this up and are thinking about it critically. Here's a few I read today:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/11/pfas-limits-epa-drinking-water

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-first-ever-drinking-water-regulations-pfas-forever-chemicals/

https://theconversation.com/pfas-forever-chemicals-why-epa-set-federal-drinking-water-limits-for-these-health-harming-contaminants-227621