PFAS Chemicals Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Scientist Discusses Drinking Water Contamination

PFAS, more commonly known as “forever chemicals,” are manmade chemicals used in an array of industrial processes and consumer products, but linger in the environment and pose a risk to human health. Chris Schulz spoke with EWG Senior Scientist Tasha Stoiber about water contamination, its health risks, and possible solutions.

Earlier this week, tap water testing conducted in 18 states by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found New Martinsville had the second-highest level of PFAS in the country at 40 parts per trillion.

Reporter Chris Schulz spoke with EWG Senior Scientist Tasha Stoiber about water contamination, its health risks, and possible solutions.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Schulz: Tell me what the Environmental Working Group is and what they do.

Stoiber: We are a nonprofit research and advocacy organization. We are largely based in D.C. and have offices in California and Minnesota. Our mission is to empower people to make healthier choices in their life. We do research and outreach and education to help reduce chemical exposures in your daily life.

Schulz: What do you focus your research on?

Stoiber: I work on a number of different areas, looking at drinking water contaminants in the U.S., PFAS of course, other contaminants like hexavalent chromium. Outside of drinking water and drinking water filters, I also work on chemicals in consumer products. PFAS is pervasive in that space as well. Also some work in other consumer product areas like mattresses, and also food additives. So a wide portfolio, but I definitely spend a lot of time thinking about chemicals in drinking water, and the drinking water filters that take those chemicals out.

Schulz: Can you give me an idea of what some of the contaminants historically have been that people are concerned about in their water and what the concerns are today?

Stoiber: There are a number of drinking water contaminants, some of them are regulated, some of them are unregulated. Our focus is always working towards getting regulations on the books. There hasn’t been a new drinking water regulation for an unregulated contaminant in the last 20 years. The EPA’s proposal for a new MCL (maximum contaminant limit) for PFOA or PFOS, that is something that has been a long time coming and that we’ve been waiting for, for quite some time.

The process for setting drinking water regulations in the U.S. is quite lengthy, it’s quite inefficient. There’s a huge burden of gathering information before that can happen. That’s why there hasn’t been a new regulation. And that’s why these new regulations for PFAS are going to be quite significant.

Drinking water contaminants that people think about, and maybe people might be a little bit more aware of: there’s been a lot of attention placed on lead in the last few years, given some of the contamination issues that have happened in some cities. That’s a little bit different because it’s due to pipes and distribution systems. It’s a little bit of a different type of contaminant, it’s picked up after drinking water treatment, so it’s largely an infrastructure issue. Cities have been dealing with that, and there’s been a lot of attention placed on that.

People probably don’t really think too much about contaminants in their drinking water, especially if you get your drinking water from a public utility. People might take it for granted and think that, well, since the drinking water is coming out of my tap, it’s from a public utility, it’s perfectly fine, it’s perfectly safe. I think a lot of people don’t give it a second guess. However, we do know that there are a lot of these unregulated contaminants, and the regulations that we do have in place, a lot of them haven’t been updated based on the most current science and what we know about potential health effects.

So a lot of them aren’t as protective as we would want them to be as well. Nitrate, for example, should be a lot lower than what the legal standard is currently to protect against the additional risk of several different types of cancer and reproductive effects.

Schulz: Yeah, let’s zoom in here. I actually briefly hopped on your website and looked at my local provider, and was a little surprised at what I saw.

Stoiber: Yeah, the tap water database is a good resource. It’s the online tool, anybody can use it to look up their drinking water.

Schulz: I am curious to know a little bit more about why EWG makes the differentiation between legal and safe.

Stoiber: If you look at the tap water database, there is an EWG standard for drinking water contaminants, and we compare that to the legal limits. What we would like to see, what the gold standard would be, those would be limits that would be purely based on protecting health and what we know about how these contaminants can harm your health. Those are largely based on either state or federal agency findings.

Many of them are based on California’s public health goals to protect against cancer. They are often quite lower than what the federal legal limits would allow. Either based on California’s public health goals, or EPA’s IRIS assessments, or often other state agency findings, sometimes based on our own derivation, based on recent scientific literature, findings. But they would all be what would be ideal to protect against public health and to not allow the additional health harms and risk that is associated with some of the contaminants that are in our drinking water. A lot of these legal limits are not as protective as they could be based on what the current scientific findings are.

Schulz: What is PFAS? And more importantly, based on what we’ve just been talking about, why is there so much focus on it now, given the fact that it’s one of the many contaminants that we should be looking at?

Stoiber: PFAS, I think people are becoming more aware of. I think it is becoming more of a household term. PFAS is actually a family of thousands of different chemicals, and they all share the same common characteristic. They all have these carbon and fluorine bonds, they’re highly fluorinated chemicals. It’s these really strong bonds that give them those properties of being stain resistant, water resistant, grease resistant and that’s why they’re used in so many products.

And it’s those strong bonds that also make them really persistent in the environment. They tend not to break down, they end up cycling in the environment, and they ended up in drinking water, soil, air and then we’re exposed to them.

So people may know them as the Teflon chemicals. They’ve been used for decades now. Some of the legacy, longer chain PFAS chemicals were voluntarily phased out, but they’ve since been replaced by other very similar chemicals that are just as persistent. We have been working on this issue for decades now.

As I mentioned before, the federal drinking water regulation is a long time coming. We have known about drinking water pollution for quite some time, and the more that we test for it, the more that we’re finding it. EPA is coming out again with another national testing data set, but it will take some time for that data to be available. That’s why we continue to do these smaller testing projects, just to get more results out there and to show that this contamination is quite widespread.

We have been talking about them for a long time, but now I just think more people are talking about them. I think the message is getting out there that the contamination is so widespread. And in the most recent USGS report, almost half of the taps in the U.S. have detections. Also people are talking about them because of the new MCL proposal, and what that means for our drinking water.

Schulz: So what exactly is the proposal, if you can give it to me in layman’s terms?

Stoiber: There are two proposed MCLs and then the hazard index. So the MCL will cover six different types of PFAS, it’ll cover PFOA, PFOS and four others as part of a mixture, and a hazard index will be calculated for those. So for the PFOA PFOS, the limits would be four parts per trillion, and that’s largely based on detection limits and how we can reproducibly and reliably detect PFAS in drinking water.

But in the EPA’s proposal, it’s the MCL-G, which is the health based limit that we want to be working towards. That is different from the legally enforceable MCL. That’s the four parts per trillion. But actually the goal would be zero, because there’s no actual safe limit of these chemicals in your drinking water. So the goal is zero, they are linked to cancer. But what we can legally enforce because of those detection limits, that’s going to be four parts per trillion.

Schulz: One of the things you mentioned that EWG does is that they work to identify, what commercially available resources there are for people to utilize in their households. Are there any filters that you would recommend people use? Or anything that people can do?

Stoiber: Starting with the filters, we do recommend filtering your drinking water at home. Either granular activated carbon or reverse osmosis type drinking water filters in your home can greatly reduce PFAS exposure. Filtering your drinking water is a really easy step that you can take to reduce these known exposures, so that’s why it’s recommended.

Activated carbon filters are going to be a little bit more cost accessible, compared to reverse osmosis, which would be a little bit more expensive and a little bit more involved in terms of plumbing. You might need to do a little bit of plumbing to install that under the sink. The thing to remember with the carbon filters is that they need to be changed on time, because if you don’t change out the filter cartridge, they won’t really work all that efficiently. So we do recommend absolutely filtering your drinking water, that’s a great way to reduce exposure. It will take some time for the MCLs to be finalized and to be enforced, so this is one way that people can do something.

But absolutely recognizing that this, the mental burden of having to figure out what filter to buy, the economic burden of, now I have to purchase a filter and use this, this shouldn’t be placed on individuals or the community. Absolutely, recognizing that it should be the polluters that were originally responsible for this and that have profited so much over the last few decades, it should be the polluters that pay to fix this.

That cost shouldn’t be the burden of that community that now has to deal with that existing pollution from here on out. That’s why the long-term solutions, you know, those are short-term solutions, but the long-term solutions are having federal regulations in place, and of course, overall, reducing as much as possible the use of these types of chemicals in commerce, because they as a result of manufacturing, and releases from manufacturing, use and disposal, they find their way into the environment, and they tend to stay there. So reducing them as much as possible is really the way to go.

New Study Finds High Levels Of ‘Forever Chemicals’ In New Martinsville Water

Tap water testing conducted in 18 states by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found New Martinsville had the second-highest level of PFAS in the country at 40 parts per trillion.

Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are manmade chemicals used in an array of industrial processes and consumer products, but linger in the environment and pose a risk to human health.

Of the 36 locations tested by the nonprofit research and advocacy organization, only Monroe, New Jersey had higher levels at 80 parts per trillion.

The EPA has proposed a new limit for some PFAS of four parts per trillion.

Tasha Stoiber, senior scientist for EWG, said the EPA’s proposed regulation is significant and overdue, but more can be done for public health.

“The health based limit that we want to be working towards, that is different from the enforceable legal MCL (maximum contaminant limit), the four parts per trillion,” she said. “Actually the goal would be zero because there’s no actual safe limit of these chemicals in your drinking water. The goal is zero, they are linked to cancer.”

Stoiber said consumers can take proactive steps, such as filtering their water at the tap before drinking, but more will need to be done to address the larger issue.

“The mental burden of having to figure out what filter to buy, the economic burden, this shouldn’t be placed on individuals or the community,” she said. “Recognizing that it should be the polluters that were originally responsible for this and that have profited so much over the last few decades, it should be the polluters that pay to fix this.”

The EPA is in the process of collecting samples to understand the frequency the chemicals are found in the nation’s drinking water systems and at what levels. The data collection is slated to take place through 2025, and Stoiber said it could be some time before the data is publicly available.

“That’s why we continue to do these smaller testing projects, just to get more results out there and to show that this contaminant contamination is quite widespread,” she said.

Gov. Jim Justice’s office has directed the DHHR and DEP to collaborate with water systems in West Virginia in preparation of the revised EPA guidelines.

PFAS Chemicals Found In 19 Drinking Water Sources

Twenty seven public water systems in the state have detectable levels of select perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) compounds, also known as “forever chemicals,” in their finished drinking water, per final sampling results released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

That is water that is sent to homes.

Of those, 19 water systems have levels that are above at least one of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulatory standards according to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Under the direction of DHHR, USGS sampled the finished drinking water of 37 systems previously identified as having certain PFAS compounds in their raw-water (pre-treated water) source, to determine which systems need additional or upgraded treatment.

Courtesy West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resouces and the Department of Environmental Protection.

A chart depicting West Virginia’s finished water testing results for the 19 systems, Public Water System Drinking Water PFAS Study, may be viewed here.

DHHR’s Bureau for Public Health and DEP are working with these 27 systems through a working group formed in March 2023 to evaluate treatment processes and best approaches to removing these compounds from finished water, as well as identify funding options to minimize the burden on customers.

There is currently no regulatory requirement for states or public water systems to conduct sampling. EPA has proposed to regulate certain PFAS compounds, PFOA and PFOS, at a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of four parts per trillion, require public water systems to monitor for certain PFAS compounds, and notify consumers and reduce PFAS levels if they exceed the regulatory standards. EPA expects to finalize this rule by the end of 2023.

West Virginia has been testing finished water to be proactive. The PFAS Protection Act, or House Bill 3189, requires the DEP to identify and address PFAS sources, develop action plans and improve reporting requirements. Senate Concurrent Resolution 46, which passed during the 2020 legislative session, requested DHHR and DEP propose and initiate a public source water supply study plan.

“While a determination of risk for consumers cannot be made based on the preliminary results of this study, this data helps us plan for when final testing is complete and the EPA rules are finalized,” said Dr. Matthew Christiansen, state health officer and commissioner of DHHR’s Bureau for Public Health.

West Virginia will receive $18.9 million in federal funding over two years to address emerging contaminants like PFAS in drinking water. That funding can be used for a wide-range of activities, including research and testing, treatment, source water activities, restructuring, consolidating, or creating water systems, and technical assistance.

Customers are encouraged to visit https://www.epa.gov/pfas/pfas-explained for information on reducing exposure to PFAS.

“The quick action to form a working group allowed West Virginia water systems and state partners an opportunity to share knowledge and resources at an early stage,” said Dr. Christiansen. “DHHR and DEP will coordinate with impacted communities to administer the federal funding.”

Additional samples of finished drinking water may be collected from sampling points located at the entry point to the distribution system and analyzed for PFAS compounds of concern.

“This information is another vital step forward in our efforts to address this issue,” said DEP Secretary Harold Ward. “The DEP, DHHR, and our local water systems can make more informed decisions and take appropriate next steps to ensure that safe, clean drinking water is accessible to all communities across West Virginia.”

PFAS are chemicals used in thousands of applications throughout the industrial, food, and textile industries and are an ingredient in some firefighting foams, food packaging, cleaning products, and various other household items. They are classified as possible carcinogens and may create other adverse health effects. Exposure to PFAS over a long period of time may lead to negative health effects.

Senate Moves Dozens of Bills As Session End Looms

With just two days left in the session, the Senate passed dozens of bills Thursday. Many of the bills related to issues of education that legislators have made a priority all session.

House Bill 2346 declares a shortage of qualified bus operators and allows retired bus operators to accept employment without losing their retirement benefits.

Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, said that an alarmingly large fiscal note that stymied a similar Senate bill from passing had been removed.

“One last important note Mr. President, I’d like to add is that originally, three sessions ago I saw a fiscal note of $999,999,999 and it is now at zero,” Grady said.

During discussion of the bill in committee, Grady – who is a teacher – said she has seen firsthand how the driver shortage is already interrupting students’ education.

The House of Delegates must now approve the Senate’s changes to the bill before it becomes law.

House Bill 2890 modifies student discipline guidelines for schools. The bill was amended twice on the floor to limit the application of new discipline provisions to grades six through 12, and exclude their application to elementary schools.

The new provisions primarily relate to when a student can be excluded from a classroom for behavior that obstructs the teaching or learning process of others. The bill now returns to the House for its approval of the changes.

House Bill 3035, in its original form, was intended to establish the state’s Grow Your Own program to facilitate a career path for high school students to pursue a career in education. However, after extensive amending, the bill no longer contains provisions for Grow Your Own, and is instead the vehicle for several other priority programs.

“This amendment will replace the House of Delegates method of promoting grade level proficiency in English language, arts and mathematics by grade three, which is the Third Grade Success Act that was part of Senate Bill 274, which has already passed the Senate earlier this session,” Grady said. “It would also remove provisions relating to the Grow Your Own program,” Grady said. “The amendment also adds in a modified version of House Bill 3293, which imposes requirements on the state board and local education agencies for addressing learning disabilities, including dyslexia and dyscalculia.”

Senate Bill 274, which had already passed out of the Senate, was similarly and significantly amended by the House Education Committee earlier this week, necessitating the addition of the Third Grade Success Act to House Bill 3035 to ensure it a chance to pass.

The bill is also pending House approval of the Senate’s amendments.

The Senate completed legislative action on House Bill 3224 adds West Virginia Junior College to the list of eligible institutions that can accept PROMISE scholarship recipients.

Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, said the change will help the state address its shortage of nurses.

“West Virginia junior college, they have three campuses around the state and one of the biggest programs that they have is their Registered Nurse program, training nurses at more than 10 locations around the state,” Weld said. “They’ve got an average of 400 students that they do, so I think that this legislation is going to help them build their student enrollment and will help West Virginians who want to become a nurse do so and help us with one of our bigger healthcare crisis that we have in the state.”

After a brief recess just after 1 p.m., the Senate returned to the floor and passed three other education bills.

House Bill 3369 completed legislative action and creates a School Safety Unit within the Division of Protective Services to conduct school safety inspections and make recommendations to county school personnel.

House Bill 3441, which completed legislative action, revises the training requirements for members of the Higher Education Policy Commission, while House Bill 3555 relates to student purchase and refunds of course material and awaits House approval.

Beyond Education

The Senate also passed out House Bill 2814, which would create a Hydrogen power task force to study Hydrogen energy in the state’s economy.

Sen. Randy E. Smith, R – Tucker, chair of the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee, said the task force will look at everything regarding the power source, including sources of potential hydrogen in the state, and recommendations to prepare the state workforce for jobs in the new industry.

“The study will include a review of regulations and legislation needed to guide development of hydrogen energy and an examination of how the state can take advantage of incentives created by the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,” he said.

The bill only needs its passage to be received by the House to complete legislative action.
Also passed out of the Senate was House Bill 3189, the PFAS Protection Act, which would identify and address sources of so-called “forever chemicals” to reduce toxic chemicals in drinking water supplies. The House must now approve the Senate’s changes to the bill before it becomes law.

State Lawmakers, Advocates Set To Act On ‘Forever Chemicals’

With toxic “forever chemicals” being detected in waterways statewide, the pollutants have caught the attention of both the public eye and state legislators.

PFAS are a group of around 10,000 manmade chemicals that have been used to manufacture both industrial and consumer products for around 80 years. More commonly known as “forever chemicals,” they’re known to cause health problems like liver damage, higher cholesterol, cancer and a weakened immune system, among others.

Most famously, PFAS chemicals have been used to create industrial-grade firefighting foam and have been used by companies like Chemours and Dupont to create Teflon. But they’re also found in products like food packaging and water-resistant jackets.

“These products end up in landfills, many of them can have leachate that gets into the groundwater and percolates through the soil,” Jenna Dodson, staff scientist at the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, said.

Dodson was among the panelists at a public conference addressing PFAS earlier this month in Shepherdstown, located in the Eastern Panhandle.

Levels of PFAS chemicals above the federal EPA’s health advisories have been found in 130 raw water supplies statewide, with the state’s Departments of Environmental Protection and Health and Human Resources currently testing the state’s treated water systems as well.

In 2019, the CDC reported that state residents living near the Shepherd Field Air National Guard Base in Martinsburg had blood concentrations of PFAS higher than the national average. Bases like that use the PFAS firefighting foam, and it is believed the chemicals contaminated much of the local waterways. Martinsburg’s Big Springs water filtration plant was temporarily shut down in 2016 after high levels of the chemicals were found.

“They’re in our waterways, it’s in our soil, it’s in our air because it also travels via air deposition,” Dodson said. “And so that’s why they’re so ubiquitous and again, localized contamination can occur.”

In the region alone, there are 36 raw water supplies that have been identified as having unsafe amounts of the chemicals. That area, along with the Ohio River Valley, is considered a “PFAS hot zone” in West Virginia, though they’ve been found in water supplies statewide.

A map depicting the locations of raw water systems statewide where PFAS were detected at higher levels than current federal health advisories. (West Virginia Rivers Coalition)

Dodson was joined by Brent Walls of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network. He’s studying PFAS’ effects on the Potomac River’s aquatic ecosystem by surveying small-range fish species in the area. He discovered some fish in the nearby Antietam Creek in Maryland had elevated amounts of the chemicals in their tissue.

“That was extremely alarming because smallmouth bass is a popular recreational fish species, not only for catch and release, but also for families and communities to take home to eat,” Walls said.

Health advisory guidelines released by the EPA in 2022 say anything above 0.004 parts per trillion for PFOA or 0.02 parts per trillion for PFOS are considered unsafe. PFOA and PFOS are two common PFAS subgroups.

“That would be one drop of PFOS in 20 Olympic sized pools,” Walls said. “That’s the kind of visualization of how small the amount of this pollutant has an impact.”

Walls is worried state and local agencies wouldn’t be able to properly measure and treat PFAS because of how little amounts are needed to infiltrate waterways to contaminate them.

“Those tests are expensive,” Walls said. “And even if the facilities are able to find the lab to provide the analysis for their influent or effluent (river systems), or even for the drinking water that goes out to the public, then they have to find the resources to address the situation, to implement some level of protection, some kind of a water treatment to remove the PFAS down to those levels. And that’s going to cost some money.”

That’s a concern echoed by John Bresland, one of the local citizens in attendance at the Shepherdstown conference Walls and Dodson spoke at. He’s also a member of the town’s water board.

EPA Senior Advisor Rod Snyder speaks at a community panel at Shepherd University’s Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional Education and History as fellow panelists Jenna Dodson and Brent Walls look on. (Shepherd Snyder/WV Public Broadcasting)

“I know that the current wastewater plant that we have will not be able to remove PFAS,” Bresland said. “So we need to get some guidance from the EPA if, and when, the time comes.”

The EPA is set to propose a national drinking water standard regulating PFOA and PFOS by the end of this year. That could come as early as this Spring, according to EPA senior advisor Rod Snyder, who also spoke at the conference.

Other locals in attendance, like David Lillard, were concerned about both his health as well as the health of the local environment.

“We’re a headwater state,” Lillard said. “So water that flows from our mountains is not only our drinking water, it is a drinking water for people in the Ohio Valley. And in the Potomac River Basin. It’s 5 million people just in the Washington, DC area.”

In the state legislature, bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate that would require the state Department of Environmental Protection to create an action plan to address PFAS chemicals, have state manufacturing facilities monitor and self-report PFAS discharge and would enforce a limit on said discharges statewide.

Senate Bill 485 passed through the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resource Committee and is currently in the Finance Committee. The House of Delegates’ equivalent bill, HB 3189, passed the House as of Friday. It’s now on its way to the Senate.

Federal Grant Funds To Help Address ‘Forever Chemicals’ In State Waterways

The money comes as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act through the EPA’s Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities grant program.

Federal money from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is being sent to West Virginia to address drinking water contaminants in state waterways.

The money comes as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act through the EPA’s Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities grant program. Nearly $19 million is going to state agencies to address PFAS, known widely as harmful “forever chemicals” that have been found in 130 raw water supplies statewide.

These water supplies have been identified throughout the state, with localized “hot spots” identified by the West Virginia Rivers Coalition in the Eastern Panhandle and Ohio River Valley.

“We cannot wait any longer to address water quality and the health impacts of PFAS in our neighborhoods,” Adam Ortiz, EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator said in a statement announcing the grant. “This federal funding will help West Virginia communities impacted by PFAS to get access to clean, safe drinking water.”

State and local agencies are expected to submit their proposals for grant money this month, according to the EPA’s website. The grant is expected to create programs for local household water testing and local contractor training, among other programs that would address PFAS in disadvantaged communities.

Two bills were introduced in the West Virginia House and Senate this legislative session to regulate PFAS: House Bill 3189 and Senate Bill 489. Both bills are in committee, though the House bill has been recommended to move to floor discussion.