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."
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/
I'm back with more on this. You might wonder if I'm going to ever let this go, and the answer is, no. I have decades of rage built up over this that can only safely begin to come out now that more of this is becoming widely known.
I just learned something that I actually didn't know about this before, and I think it's worth sharing.
By now we all, hopefully, know that DuPont made billions on PFAs, all while knowing since the 60's that the mice they tested with PFAs died, and since about the 70's that the people in their manufacturing facilities who worked with PFAs were dying.
I also recommend reverse osmosis as the most comprehensive solution to getting it out of your water. Whether that's from your local water utility or in your own house is yet to be determined. Please keep an eye on what your local utility chooses to do, and encourage them NOT to use the full 5 years they're allowed to use to deal with this.
What I did not know until now, is that DuPont, realizing that everyone would have to get THEIR chemicals out of YOUR water bought one of the leading manufacturers of reverse osmosis technology, so the could profit on the back end of killing people. They're planning on making upwards of 4 BILLION PER YEAR from the cleanup if they can convince utilities to use their products.
Do not give any money, whether yourself(I'm not even sure they make direct to consumer products) or your local utilities to Desalitech Ltd.. That's just stuffing more money in DuPont's pockets after THEY did this to YOU.
There's a pretty good article today on Vox about this. I distinctly remember the author being on NPR shooting down immunity debt once, because she interrupted the host mid-introduction when she said "post-pandemic" to say "mid-pandemic" and I had so much hope. Then she said something wishy-washy about masks and suggested washing your hands better. But, that was at least a couple years ago and not a lot of people were actively shooting down immunity debt, so good for her.
Anyway, onto the article today. Overall it's good. It details some risks, what to do, recommends reverse osmosis as your best bet. There's a lot of good info here.
What do I hate? This:
"While their health risks are concerning — and scientists still have a lot to learn about them — it can be helpful to think of PFAS in the context of some other common toxins, says Ducatman. If you had “the choice between smoking a pack [of cigarettes] a day or being in one of those high-PFAS populations,” he says, “high-PFAS population is way safer.”"
I really don't know why anyone feels the need to compare every health threat to smoking a pack a day. Like, what is this? 1985?
Avoid PFAs wherever you can.
https://www.vox.com/even-better/24135052/pfas-forever-chemicals-health-testing-exposure
Fantastic article today from ProPublica on 3M and PFAs in everyone's blood. I know I've mostly focused on DuPont here, but they're not the only ones with blame. I once briefly partnered with 3M on a project and I found them to be the most objectionable company I ever worked with. Much like DuPont, they knew how toxic it was, going back to at least the 70's. They knew what they were doing, and they chose profits.
"Rats that had more fish meal in their diets, she discovered, tended to have higher levels of PFOS, suggesting that the chemical had spread through the food chain and perhaps through water. In male lab rats, PFOS levels rose with age, indicating that the chemical accumulated in the body. But, curiously, in female rats the levels sometimes fell. Hansen was unsettled when toxicology reports indicated why: Mother rats seemed to be offloading the chemical to their pups. Exposure to PFOS could begin before birth.
Another study confirmed that Scotchban and Scotchgard were sources of the chemical. PFOS wasn’t an official ingredient in either product, but both contained other fluorochemicals that, the study showed, broke down into PFOS in the bodies of lab rats. Hansen and her team ultimately found PFOS in eagles, chickens, rabbits, cows, pigs and other animals. They also found 14 additional fluorochemicals in human blood, including several produced by 3M. Some were present in wastewater from a 3M factory."
https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story
@BE don’t mind me, I’m over here being blackpilled about the level of pfas in fucking olive oil. I put like a quarter cup in my breakfast smoothie every day. This world is so fucked.
I hear you! I hate it. I *am* honestly mad, and have been for decades, that the decision to make them ubiquitous was made, intentionally, by companies. They knew, and they chose ubiquitous PFAs for profit.
The Veteran Hearing Aid Fiasco was also a 3M absolute fraud.
The company knew for years they were selling faulty devices to the troops and when they were brought to court they attempted to relocate the program to a subsidiary and claim bankruptcy to avoid payment.
It did not work. They paid:
"250,000 Veterans Agree To $6B Settlement With Earplug Company"
I didn't know all about that. Thank you for sharing! I forget the exact details, but at one point along the way DuPont very slightly changed their name and claimed that they were a new company and didn't know anything about PFAs, too.
@BE @surfingreg I was once friends with someone who grew up in Oakdale MN (near 3M), and moved into a house in a subdivision near where there is now a ground water pump due to dumping. At the time, I don’t think it was there.
After a while, all the neighbors started to get ill, and they put 2 and 2 together, and listed the large 4 bedroom house for sale. A young, single, 3M employee purchased the house.
One parent is hyper chemical sensitive, the other died of cancer.
... so if it's in precipitation, it's in my well water? Oof.
I'm pretty sure the water system my husband installed last year has a RO filter in the chain of filters somewhere. I guess I'm asking when he comes home this evening.
I hate to put it bluntly, but, if it's open to rain water collection, then yes. More to the point, you'll probably want to see if you're near any known PFA contamination sites. Groundwater unfortunately accumulates PFAs from lots of contaminated sites.
You can find some of the worst here:
https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/
But it's really hit and miss as to whether your groundwater's even been tested in the end.
The good news is if you're using RO in there then in all likelihood you're good.
Thanks for that link! It looks like we're in good shape; the three closest tested places are 'below limit'.
Also, I discovered there's a My Address in Australia! Cool!!
Oh, and one other thing. Don't worry about being blunt, especially about stuff like this. I'm pretty thick-skinned in general.
"PFAS are also toxic at extremely low levels (i.e. parts per quadrillion), posing significant risks to our health."
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/forever-chemicals-called-pfas-show-your-food-clothes-and-home
Absolutely! The real difference maker between PFAs and other pollution is that because they are "forever chemicals" basically 100% that gets released into the world eventually ends up accumulating in places like your kidneys and liver while your body's trying to filter them out. So even small doses, regularly ingested, build up over time.
Thank you! I think I was working on posting about it as you were sending it. Much appreciated!
@BE As a former cig smoker, arguments like this are tactically designed to make nonsmokers feel comfortable about doing the thing, and make smokers also feel more comfortable about doing the thing because "fuck it I already smoke cigs."
I know I say this often, but, ubiquitous is the right word for PFAs.
https://truthout.org/articles/forever-chemicals-ubiquitous-in-water-atmosphere-in-great-lakes-basin/
"The levels of PFAS in precipitation did not correlate with whether or not an area in the Great Lakes Basin was heavily industrialized, lead author Chunjie Xia, a postdoctoral associate at Indiana University, told The Hill.
“The levels in precipitation don’t depend on the population,” said Xia. “They are similar in Chicago, which is heavily populated, and at Eagle Harbor, Michigan, where there’s maybe 500 people living in a 25-kilometer radius.”
“That tells us the levels are ubiquitous,” he said."
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c10098