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.

@BE ewww. Do you know if the water filters you attach to a kitchen faucet filter out all that? That's what I have.

@Jennifer

NSF/ANSI 53 means it's certified to remove at least some PFA/PFOAs. The removal limit for certification varies based on location, but, that's the code you're looking for in a filter.

@BE @Jennifer

I'm seeing a counter top filter system with a rating NSF/ANSI 58, is the higher number more effective?

And a few weeks ago on our evening news was a report that boiling water removes PFAS, so the next day I boiled water before drinking it, but when I thought about it, it made no sense, so I stopped...

Do you know if sparkling water beverage cans are plastic lined?

(Sorry, I have a lot of questions, and am excited to see you posting on this topic...)

@FiddleSix @Jennifer

Don't be sorry! I love the questions.

NSF 58 is specifically about reverse osmosis systems. There's a handful of different NSF certifications for different types of water filtering.

https://d2evkimvhatqav.cloudfront.net/documents/water_58_insert.pdf

Think of it as a minimum requirement. Most systems that meet the standards, surpass it.

I can't think of any reason that boiling water would remove PFAs. That's wild. They're way too stable to break down in boiling water(thus, forever chemicals) and they're not alive, so they don't die like bacteria, for example.

But, boiling kind of brings up something that should probably be discussed and that's distilled water. Distilling water alone won't remove all of the PFAs, despite some bad info out there. Distillation separates things based on boiling points, and some PFAs(remember, there's 15,000+) have boiling points around 100C. If you have lab quality distilled water, maybe, but I wouldn't do it at home and expect pure water. Just an FYI at what they might have been getting at there.

The sparkling water question is fantastic, and off the top of my head I don't know! I know sodas and other acidic substances(think tomato sauce) have used various linings to protect the aluminum can, and often those have had toxic substances that leech into the food/drink. I don't know about sparkling water, though.

@BE @Jennifer

Thank you so much!

The boiling water thing made me wonder if the PFAs were somehow adhering to the interior of the teakettle, which also didn't seem good. Otherwise I think it would just concentrate them, as the quantity of water was reduced through steam...

I had hoped that canned water was better than (plastic) bottled water. It has no metallic taste, but I do wonder.

I'm looking at getting the RO counter top filter system, but need to save up a little for that.

We mostly drink & eat from glass or ceramic ware, and cook/store food in the same (plus metal, for stove top cooking), but it can all still feel overwhelming.

@FiddleSix @Jennifer

I absolutely hear you. Little bit at a time is all you can do. We removed all non-stick PFA stuff a long time ago. After that we went item by item removing plastics. It's a whole thing, but, you either consent to industrial pollution or you don't!

@BE @FiddleSix I read about that boiling water thing too and thought "what." But then I came across this article that explains a study about boiling water then filtering it. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/boiling-tap-water-could-help-remove-80-percent-of-its-microplastics-study-suggests-180983874/

I've started switching all my kitchen storage to glass or ceramic with the cloth/beeswax tops. What do you think of silicone storage containers?

@Jennifer @BE

Jennifer, thank you for the additional information and the article! I don't recall the local new story mentioning filtration after boiling, but that does make sense...
Time to get the kettle out again, maybe.

@FiddleSix @BE it seems like a lot of outlets saw the study headline about boiling water but didn't bother to read it to find the part about having to filter it!