Report Says More than 100 Million Americans’ Tap Water May be Contaminated w/Chemicals: Feds Failed to Inform Public

Are PFAS chemicals in my water? The EPA has not compiled and released all the information on PFAS contamination. You can use EWG’s Tap Water Database to search your zip code and learn if you rely on one of the approximately 200 water systems with contamination levels above the EPA’s reporting limit. But keep in mind, the EPA’s reporting limit is higher than a health-protective level. The EPA or the labs that did the water analysis have either discarded or are withholding the results of tests that indicate contamination, but are below the EPA reporting limits, so some data is NOT reflected in EWG’s Tap Water Database. [MORE]

From [HERE] and [HERE]  More than 1,500 drinking water systems across the country may be contaminated with the nonstick chemicals PFOA and PFOS, and similar fluorine-based chemicals, a new EWG analysis shows. This groundbreaking finding comes the same day the Environmental Protection Agency is convening a summit to address PFAS chemicals – a class of toxic chemicals that includes PFOA and PFOS, and that are linked to cancer, thyroid disease, weakened immunity and other health problems.

From 2013 to 2015, the EPA mandated national testing for PFAS chemicals in public water systems, yet the full results of this testing, funded by taxpayers, were never made public. Water utilities with the highest concentrations of PFAS chemicals have been publicly identified. But the names of utilities with detectable PFAS contamination below the so-called reporting levels of 10 to 90 parts per trillion, or ppt, were not released. Millions of people were not informed that their water supply is contaminated with these chemicals.

The additional water systems with PFAS contamination likely serve tens of millions of people, and it is essential for people in those communities to be informed of this hazard. Eurofins Eaton Analytical, which analyzed a third of the nationwide water samples, found that 28 percent of the water utilities it tested contained PFAS chemicals at concentrations at or above 5 ppt. The percentage of samples with PFAS detections nearly doubled when the laboratory analyzed down to 2.5 ppt. Based on this data, EWG’s analysis suggests that up to 110 million Americans could have PFAS in their water.

This new research greatly exceeds EWG’s previous estimate of 16 million Americans being exposed to PFAS-contaminated water, as reported in the EWG’s national Tap Water Database.

Independent scientific assessments find that the safe level of exposure to PFAS chemicals is about 1 ppt – significantly below the reporting level set by the EPA. [MORE]