PFAS, often used in waterproof clothing, also find their way into drinking water and human bodies. (Photo by CasarsaGuru via Getty Images)
The Virginia Department of Health continues its quest to find the levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, in the state by testing them in water systems that serve small and underserved communities.
“We suspect that they have not yet done any PFAS monitoring and therefore do not know what they are dealing with,” said Robert Edlemen, director of technical services at VDH’s drinking water office, in an interview. “And we certainly don’t either.”
PFAS are the thousands of different chemicals used in various household products ranging from winter coats to cookware and firefighting foam, due to the tight chemical bond they possess to repel water and heat.
Because of that tight bond, the chemicals are nearly impossible to break down, meaning they end up in landfills, can leach into groundwater, and then are absorbed by clouds that return them to the environment and food sources through rainfall.
The new tests come as part of the federal government’s adoption of final PFAS rules April to enforce maximum contaminant levels of 4 or 10 parts per trillion, or MCL, for a limited number of types of PFAS. One part per trillion is the equivalent of 1 drop of water in 20 Olympic swimming pools.
The new standards will reduce exposure to PFAS for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said when the new rules were announced this spring.
The chemicals have been linked to serious health problems, including cancer and reproductive and fetal development problems.
In issuing the rules, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency created a grace period for public water systems to monitor levels of PFAS chemicals through 2027 before having to treat any exceedances of MCLs in drinking water starting in 2029.
Types of systems
Nationally and in Virginia, public water systems or waterworks are defined as systems that serve 25 people or more per day for 60 days or more per year.
In Virginia, there are 1,072 community systems that serve towns, cities and counties and about 500 non-transitory, non-community systems that serve schools or an office building where people return day after day but do not live.
There are also 1,245 temporary non-community systems, serving restaurants, a campground or a highway rest stop, where groups of people come and go rather than living in the same area or returning to the same area repeatedly.
The community systems and non-temporary, non-community systems are subject to the new rules. The transient, non-communal systems don’t have to follow the rules because they think the same people won’t be exposed to the potential contaminants of the same system over and over again.
Private wells, which are unregulated in Virginia and primarily serve the homes of individuals in rural, mountainous areas, are also not subject to the rules.
Previous testing
In addition to some samplings of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has done, the Virginia Department of Health has conducted two phases of testing in Virginia’s publicly regulated water systems.
The first of these happened in 2021 with 45 of the 50 systems contacted by VDH agreeing to participate. The effort focused on larger systems that serve about 5.25 million of the state’s roughly 7 million residents, Elemen said.
Phase II, in 2022 and 2023, sampled 274 systems that were smaller community systems, and a handful of non-transient, non-community systems that were located near areas where known sources of PFAS were present, such as large airports that may use firefighting foam with the chemicals and unlined landfills.
As a result of that sampling, PFAS was found to be present in the Roanoke, Newport News and Potomac River areas.
New tests
Now in Phase III, VDH is sampling small and underserved communities, including the “vast majority” of Virginia systems, Edelman said. These systems include systems that serve a population of less than 10,000 residents and are considered taxable under the EPA’s Environmental Justice Directive. screening tool.
The effort is expected to collect about 400 samples in all parts of the state over the next two to three months, Edelman said.
“Considering we have over a thousand community water systems, 400 samples are not enough to get the job done,” Edlemen says. “But it is the next step in making progress in identifying PFAS levels across the state… it is an achievable step.”
Some of the roughly $27 million the state has received from the federal government for 2022 and 2023, and $13.5 million this year, could be tapped to offset the cost of testing, Edelman said at a recent waterworks advisory committee meeting . meeting.
More testing
The testing is all seen as a way to understand where PFAS are in Virginia before we start figuring out where the substances are coming from.
Chris Pomeory, attorney for the Virginia Municipal Drinking Water Association, which represents water utilities that serve about 3 in 4 Virginians, said in a statement that the “VMDWA is pleased to know that VDH plans to help small underserved communities with PFAS testing, which is useful in determining where PFAS testing is needed.”
Testing the smaller systems “absolutely needs to be done,” added Betsy Nichols, vice president of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, a local environmental group, because they may be in rural areas where biosolids from wastewater treatment plants are more likely to be used . fertilizer.
The level of exposure to private sources also needs to be understood, Nichols added. She suggested the state could create a grant program to help users of those systems administer the tests.
It costs her group about $90 to $100 to perform small tests, which require strict handling and storage protocols because of the ease of outside particles contaminating the test subjects, Nichols said.
“Maybe [the wells] everything is going well, but you don’t really know until you test,” Nichols said.
Also important is knowing where PFAS comes from, such as carpet manufacturers, metal refiners and pesticides they use, to “turn off the tap” and start using alternatives, Nichols said.
“If we don’t take action sooner, we won’t have implemented all the changes we need to implement when that deadline hits,” Nichols said.
Last session, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin was in charge signed a bill that establishes a process for the Department of Environmental Quality to identify “significant” sources of PFAS. The bill passed despite some advocates initially wanting a more direct report from those who used the chemicals to determine how they got into the environment in the first place.
VDH will also embark on a $500,000 study, to be presented to the General Assembly on December 1, to determine how much it could cost to have water utilities make improvements to treat PFAS millions.
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