A revealing investigation conducted by The Guardian revealed widespread water contamination issues in the U.S. that the Environmental Protection Agency has shockingly yet to detect. According to The Guardian, its sampling of water from nine communities saw elevated levels of “forever chemicals” known as PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) not seen in the 537 tests that state and federal agencies typically use. Of the tests conducted in nine cities, the outlet found that seven city samples showed higher PFAS levels when tested using the TOF (total organic fluorine) method, which allows for more “forever chemicals” to be identified. The EPA 537 method focuses on just 14 PFAS, though the agency has updated its standards to 537.1 to account for “more PFAS that have the potential to contaminate drinking water [that] have been identified or introduced as PFOA/PFOS alternatives in manufacturing,” bringing that total up to 30.
The TOF method, which detects a marker found in the thousands of PFAS that have so far been identified, has yet to be adapted by the EPA. The agency is still looking into creating a rapid screening tool using the TOF method, though it was in development last year and little has been announced in terms of progress. In the meantime, many communities appear to be missing key details on what still remains in their water. For example, EPA 537 tests conducted in Leland, North Carolina found just 45 parts per million of PFAS, while The Guardian’s TOF tests showed 123 parts per million. That’s a pretty big difference. TOF tests, which detect organic fluorine, still aren’t perfect but they are being more widely adapted and replacing other methods that tend to miss newer “forever chemicals.” Many of those newer compounds have yet to be studied, so it’s unclear how damaging they may be.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Policy Director Kyla Bennett told The Guardian that this lack of information should inspire people to act. “There are so many PFAS that we don’t know anything about, and if we don’t know anything about them, how do we know they aren’t hurting us?” Bennett said. “Why are we messing around?” PEER recently put out a statement criticizing the EPA for not doing more to address “forever chemicals” expediently and for failing to address concerns over what compounds PFAS turn into as they break down but never fully decompose. Water contamination remains an issue and, so far, what the EPA does detect certainly doesn’t look good. On Wednesday, officials in Mobile, Alabama, issued a warning to residents that the EPA had detected PFAS well above the agency’s acceptable threshold in the city’s water.
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