I noticed that the drinking water is contaminated in a city near me that I believe happens to be the source for a bottled water company by the same name. I wonder if the source of the tap and the bottling is the same.
This doesn’t get nearly enough airtime. Among other things, also potentially driving obesity rates: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33223205/
There is no federal limit for pfas levels in water.
Honestly I expected this to be a more dense map, considering all the fearmongering I hear these days. It's always good to see accurate sources of data to check my reality.
"As a result of the lawsuits concerning the PFOA class-action lawsuit, DuPont began to use GenX, a similarly fluorinated compound, as a replacement for polytetrafluoroethylene in the manufacture of fluoropolymers, such as Teflon.[71][72] However, in lab tests on rats, GenX has been shown to cause many of the same health problems as PFOA.[73][74]
The chemicals are manufactured by Chemours, a corporate spin-off of DuPont, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.[75] While PFOA was phased out by 2014, Chemours was already found to be dumping GenX into the Cape Fear River in 2017, with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) ordering Chemours to halt discharges of all fluorinated compounds on September 5, 2017."
Things like "BPA-free!" almost always translates to "We replaced it with something that's probably worse!"
At some point, we have to figure out a way to crack down on companies that knowingly just switch from one troublesome chemical to a lightly tweaked version of the same thing.
We need a federal analogue act for industrial chemicals. Or, better yet, do what the EU reportedly does, and demand safety tests before allowing novel chemicals to be used, instead of 30 years later after someone notices the 1000% increase of obscure cancer rates near the Chemours plant.
As a foreigner, why is it that select states are absolutely riddled with water contamination while most are not (and some are pristine)? I imagine it comes down to local legislation, but surely nobody wants their drinking water polluted, so how did the legislation happen in the first place?
PS: especially as Colorado and Ohio are among the worst, through my lens they seem the states that are most about protecting the land.
Military bases and industry. The one in Oscoda pisses me off the most, the Air Force seems to be slow playing remediation efforts that have contaminated one of the most beautiful rivers in the US.
I think it's safe to spread that distribution as if it were throughout new England and the Midwest. Those states have just reported/recorded the information more. As someone who recently purchased a home in one of those states, I was glad to actually have at least some detailed information available about nearby superfund sites and testing results.
If you turn off drinking water, the distribution looks more even. It just seems to be bias in the water testing/reporting.
Likely it is legislation, but probably it's required testing for certain permits or environmental reasons and then that testing gets reported.
I live in upstate NY and I've never heard of anyone testing for PFAS. In our schools they do bi-yearly drinking water tests for lead and a handful of other things, but not PFAS.
It also just might be where chemical plants or recycling centers are located. My brother used to work at a chemical recycling plant in New Jersey, there's a LOT of those kinds of plants in New Jersey. Surely the goal is 0 spills or accidental dumping but there's no way that's 100% fool proof so surely where this stuff has been created/treated/recycled there's going to be higher concentrations.
Our local school district's most recent water testing seems to have just been for lead. It resulted in a 229 page document outlining how, when, and where they tested every single tap in all the schools and what the results were. I've not seen mention of PFAS testing in our schools, which is where I'd expect to see it first.
Maybe it depends on how they expect the contamination to get in? Lead usually gets in through the local pipes, so it makes sense to test it at the taps. For contaminations that get in from the water intake at the plant it does make more sense to test them there.
> As a foreigner, why is it that select states are absolutely riddled with water contamination while most are not (and some are pristine)?
Historical reasons, for one - for example, the Silicon Valley has the most Superfund sites in the US (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/silic...) as a legacy of the chip production that was concentrated there. For PFAS contamination specifically, part of the answer is the distribution and size of airports and military bases, where PFAS are / have been used in firefighting activities and the runoff water was not filtered.
Another reason is lax supervision, enforcement and willful ignorance on part of politics - many local politicians don't want to disturb the major employers in town for fear of driving them away and the federal government isn't much better, the Trxmp administration was notorious for de-regulating (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-envir...).
When analyzing the United States you have to remember that most of it is empty. Most of the time when you see a picture like this, it's because of the population distribution. These areas look clean because people don't live there. https://www.census.gov/history/www/reference/maps/
Its also not clear how to gauge these dots. One dot may cover an enormous area or a small area. One might wonder if some instances are double counted. On the big picture level, it's reasonable down to the level of "where the people at"
My partner, who is an environmental engineer that specializes in superfund site remediation, took one look at the map and said "Colorado is only a hot spot because they're actively looking for it and other places aren't."
Depends on legislation too. Our water, in NC, is marked on the map. We’re fed from the Neuse River which is contaminated upstream. Unfortunately I don’t see that our water quality report even mentioned PFAs, at least not back in 2020: https://www.fuquay-varina.org/DocumentCenter/View/744/CCR---...
I've worked at Xerox and in the Kodak sites around Rochester, NY, USA. They're all EPA Superfund sites. Surely there's negative health impacts of working on contaminated ground, but MANYMANY* high tech locations in the USA are EPA Superfund sites due to that's where the tech was created and the buildings and infrastructure were already present, so current tech companies just keep using them. Most of the buildings I had worked in had regular tap water testing performed and if any test came back with too high of levels then water filters were installed. I'm sure Apple does similar.
Xerox even has a bunch of patents about how to suck up and treat ground water.
Santa Clara County has the most Superfund sites of any county in the US, so it's hard to find somewhere to build that isn't contaminated. Between mercury mining, agriculture, the military and the semiconductor industry, SiValley is quite polluted.
An unholy coalition politicians, gov't administration, scientists and corporate interest tried to cover up historical PFOS pollution around the 3M production site in Zwijndrecht (BE). They were caught red handed by a vigilant citizen journal when some politicians wanted to expedite some car-centric public construction works smack in the middle of the polluted area.
The ministers for environment and public works ordered their administrations to turn a blind eye, not to sample the wider area to assess the extent of the PFOS pollution, and under no circumstance communicate to the public about the pollution.
A renowned toxicologist was commissioned write down safety norms for the public works in the context of pre-existing PFOS pollution. He took a European reference norm that was already outdated at the time given new toxicological insights, messed up the arithmetic, and, lo and behold, came up with a threshold that was _just_ right for the works to start.
A special parliamentary commission was established to investigate, and so we had 3M testify in parliament on how they believe it is a harmless chemical etc.
At some point in 2010s 3M switched the production process over to use PFAS which they are dumping in the Scheldt river in absurd amounts to this day.
We got some reassuring corporate sop that they promise to reduce PFAS levels in wastewater discharges to 54 kg/year by 2024 (5.375 kg/year in 2021). For reference, Chemours (NL) had a permit for dumping just 2 kg/year in 2020, which sounds about right given our current understanding of the human toxicological effects of PFAS.
The original "Scotchguard" was PFOS and it was reformulated in the early 2000s to PFAS which is believed to be less dangerous.
PFOS and PFAS are "fluorosurfactants" which are surfactants in the sense of "surface acting agents" but are very different from the usual soaps, detergents and disinfectants that help things mix. Applied to solid surfaces it does the opposite. It's pretty amazing that you can apply it to a rug, pour coffee on it, and it wipes right off without sticking.
This should be PFBS, according to Wikipedia. PFAS is the whole family of chemicals, PFBS is a particular member with a much shorter half-life than PFOS. “PFAS” getting a non-abbreviation moniker would sure help to disambiguate things.
Also from WP, Scotchgard now uses “a proprietary fluorinated urethane,” which means we know next to nothing about it.
PFAS contamination is existent in many waterways and bodies of water and contaminate the fish that live there. Shame because ones that tend to build up more PFAS in their system are not safe to eat either, but would otherwise provide an inexpensive, healthy, and delicious meal. Most anglers I talk to (in the Bay Area) catch and release rather than taking home and consuming the fish because of chemical contamination of the water.
46 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 115 ms ] thread"As a result of the lawsuits concerning the PFOA class-action lawsuit, DuPont began to use GenX, a similarly fluorinated compound, as a replacement for polytetrafluoroethylene in the manufacture of fluoropolymers, such as Teflon.[71][72] However, in lab tests on rats, GenX has been shown to cause many of the same health problems as PFOA.[73][74]
The chemicals are manufactured by Chemours, a corporate spin-off of DuPont, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.[75] While PFOA was phased out by 2014, Chemours was already found to be dumping GenX into the Cape Fear River in 2017, with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) ordering Chemours to halt discharges of all fluorinated compounds on September 5, 2017."
Things like "BPA-free!" almost always translates to "We replaced it with something that's probably worse!"
At some point, we have to figure out a way to crack down on companies that knowingly just switch from one troublesome chemical to a lightly tweaked version of the same thing.
Just whitelist certain chemicals and uses eg. toothpaste fluorides.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act
PS: especially as Colorado and Ohio are among the worst, through my lens they seem the states that are most about protecting the land.
Also so far as military bases go it seems to be all of them.
If you turn off drinking water, the distribution looks more even. It just seems to be bias in the water testing/reporting.
I live in upstate NY and I've never heard of anyone testing for PFAS. In our schools they do bi-yearly drinking water tests for lead and a handful of other things, but not PFAS.
It also just might be where chemical plants or recycling centers are located. My brother used to work at a chemical recycling plant in New Jersey, there's a LOT of those kinds of plants in New Jersey. Surely the goal is 0 spills or accidental dumping but there's no way that's 100% fool proof so surely where this stuff has been created/treated/recycled there's going to be higher concentrations.
As of last year, maximum limits for public water went into effect. I believe testing has gone on for longer than that.
EDIT: linked fixed
https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/water/drinking/docs/...
Our local school district's most recent water testing seems to have just been for lead. It resulted in a 229 page document outlining how, when, and where they tested every single tap in all the schools and what the results were. I've not seen mention of PFAS testing in our schools, which is where I'd expect to see it first.
It seems it just started at the end of last year, and my local watery authority is already publishing results on it: https://mcwa-wordpress-media.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/upl...
Note that more dots on the map does not mean more PFAS. It means more data.
Historical reasons, for one - for example, the Silicon Valley has the most Superfund sites in the US (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/silic...) as a legacy of the chip production that was concentrated there. For PFAS contamination specifically, part of the answer is the distribution and size of airports and military bases, where PFAS are / have been used in firefighting activities and the runoff water was not filtered.
Another reason is lax supervision, enforcement and willful ignorance on part of politics - many local politicians don't want to disturb the major employers in town for fear of driving them away and the federal government isn't much better, the Trxmp administration was notorious for de-regulating (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-envir...).
Or alternatively, https://xkcd.com/1138/
Its also not clear how to gauge these dots. One dot may cover an enormous area or a small area. One might wonder if some instances are double counted. On the big picture level, it's reasonable down to the level of "where the people at"
[1] https://disasterarea.home.blog/2019/07/12/apple-headquarters...
[2] https://twitter.com/richgel999/status/1436934781955190788
Xerox even has a bunch of patents about how to suck up and treat ground water.
An unholy coalition politicians, gov't administration, scientists and corporate interest tried to cover up historical PFOS pollution around the 3M production site in Zwijndrecht (BE). They were caught red handed by a vigilant citizen journal when some politicians wanted to expedite some car-centric public construction works smack in the middle of the polluted area.
The ministers for environment and public works ordered their administrations to turn a blind eye, not to sample the wider area to assess the extent of the PFOS pollution, and under no circumstance communicate to the public about the pollution.
A renowned toxicologist was commissioned write down safety norms for the public works in the context of pre-existing PFOS pollution. He took a European reference norm that was already outdated at the time given new toxicological insights, messed up the arithmetic, and, lo and behold, came up with a threshold that was _just_ right for the works to start.
A special parliamentary commission was established to investigate, and so we had 3M testify in parliament on how they believe it is a harmless chemical etc.
At some point in 2010s 3M switched the production process over to use PFAS which they are dumping in the Scheldt river in absurd amounts to this day.
We got some reassuring corporate sop that they promise to reduce PFAS levels in wastewater discharges to 54 kg/year by 2024 (5.375 kg/year in 2021). For reference, Chemours (NL) had a permit for dumping just 2 kg/year in 2020, which sounds about right given our current understanding of the human toxicological effects of PFAS.
The original "Scotchguard" was PFOS and it was reformulated in the early 2000s to PFAS which is believed to be less dangerous.
PFOS and PFAS are "fluorosurfactants" which are surfactants in the sense of "surface acting agents" but are very different from the usual soaps, detergents and disinfectants that help things mix. Applied to solid surfaces it does the opposite. It's pretty amazing that you can apply it to a rug, pour coffee on it, and it wipes right off without sticking.
This should be PFBS, according to Wikipedia. PFAS is the whole family of chemicals, PFBS is a particular member with a much shorter half-life than PFOS. “PFAS” getting a non-abbreviation moniker would sure help to disambiguate things.
Also from WP, Scotchgard now uses “a proprietary fluorinated urethane,” which means we know next to nothing about it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotchgard