Mapping Out Local PFAS Risk, As Federal Rules Waver

Journalists can find local PFAS pollution stories through a data map from the Environmental Working Group. Above, research on PFAS in Wisconsin's waters at the University of Wisconsin Aquatic Sciences Center. Photo: Bonnie Willison, Wisconsin Sea Grant via Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0).

TipSheet: Mapping Out Local PFAS Risk, As Federal Rules Waver

By Joseph A. Davis

You may call them “forever chemicals” — but you could also think of them as “everywhere chemicals.” That means there is likely a PFAS pollution story near you.

Journalists looking for local stories about how these ubiquitous toxic chemicals threaten people have a big helper: an updated pollution map put out by the data-friendly Environmental Working Group. Find it here.

PFAS (in case you’ve been vacationing) are a huge class of fluorinated chemicals used in all kinds of consumer products, industrial products and even firefighting foams. The acronym PFAS refers to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

They have been around for about a century. The estimate of how many separate PFAS chemicals there are is now as high as 12,000. It keeps going up.

 

Why it matters

PFAS chemicals can be toxic to humans — with enough exposure. Various PFAS can cause cancers, liver damage, weakening of the immune system, developmental problems in children, high cholesterol and obesity.

These effects probably vary according to which PFAS are involved. PFAS are used in many ways: nonstick cookware, food wrappers, water-resistant clothes, stain-resistant upholstery and personal care products like cosmetics — to name just some.

One result is a lot of human exposure.

 

The backstory

PFAS origins go back as far as the 1930s. They became a larger concern more recently, when they were found in the drinking water of Bennington, Vermont. Once people started looking, they found them everywhere.

PFAS chemicals are persistent, i.e., hard to destroy. That means they accumulate in humans and other creatures. Measurable levels of PFAS have been found in the blood of most Americans (97% or more).

 

There is much more to learn

about what levels of what

PFAS cause what effects.

 

And there is much more to learn about what levels of what PFAS cause what effects.

Under political pressure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally issued regulations to limit some of the major PFAS in drinking water during the Biden administration.

The Trump administration has already decided to roll those limits back part of the way.

Treatment of drinking water to remove PFAS requires technology well beyond what is used in most water systems. It is expensive.

The utility industry (many of whom are elected officials) is reluctant to take the unpopular action of raising customers’ rates. But public pressure to do something has prompted some states to act well ahead of the EPA.

The EPA still has a rule requiring utilities to monitor unregulated contaminants and report them to the public. That’s where a lot of the data comes from.

 

Story ideas

• Take a good look at the latest EWG PFAS map. Zoom in. It only shows places where PFAS have been found in drinking water, but that is a lot. Figure out how wide a geographic area is of concern to you and your audience.
• Ask what sources of PFAS may be contaminating your local drinking water. This varies. Talk to local utility and state environmental officials. Also, local activists.
• Are any industrial facilities near you using PFAS or putting them in products? What happens to their solid waste and wastewater? What permits do they need or have?
• Is there a military base or an airport in your area? Firefighting foam runoff often runs off into surface and groundwater.
• What do your Congressional representatives (and senators) think should be done about PFAS in water?
• Talk to scientists and researchers at nearby universities who study PFAS pollution and its effects.

 

Reporting resources

Previous PFAS coverage in the SEJournal has listed many useful reporting resources. Look at the resource section of our last TipSheet on the then-new PFAS drinking water rule, and see our editor’s note below for more useful links.

[Editor’s Note: For more on PFAS, get started with a comprehensive primer and an Issue Backgrounder on PFAS regulation, then check out Toolboxes on tracking PFAS in the Toxics Release Inventory and another database, as well as on how an obscure toxic substance database was used to ID a loophole on PFAS. We’ve also got TipSheets on PFAS in sewage sludge, and PFAS near military sites and in local drinking water. See Features on the problem of PFAS disposal for the waste industry and a call for coverage in small communities, plus Inside Story Q&As on state-level PFAS policy change, small-market beat PFAS coverage and on PFAS contamination in Europe. For more on the history of the PFAS problem, check out our earlier reports from 2022, 2021 and 2018. And for the latest headlines on PFAS, be sure to regularly visit our EJToday headlines on the topic.]

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

---

* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 21. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.