Millions of people in the US may be drinking groundwater contaminated with ‘Forever Chemicals’

The next time you turn on the tap for a refreshing drink, consider where it came from. More than 20% of the United States population may be using H20 contaminated with toxic chemicals.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs) are compounds that have become better known as “forever chemicals” due to their difficulty in breaking down. The EPA has required monitoring for PFAs in public water systems that serve more than 3,300 people for several years. However, scientists from the United States Geological Survey discovered gaps in the data collected by the EPA. To get a better sense of how many Americans might be drinking drinking water contaminated with PFAs, they came up with their own model, which they published in the news Science. The findings were alarming: They found that somewhere between 71 and 95 million people in the contiguous United States could be drinking water with detectable levels of the chemicals.

Groundwater is what it sounds like: water found in underground pores, such as aquifers. The water can be supplied to households through public utilities or private wells, and it is the source of drinking water for approximately 107 million Americans.

The USGS results were based on more than 1,200 groundwater samples the agency took between 2019 and 2022. The USGS scientists then analyzed the data using a machine learning model, mapping the chances of contamination by geographic area. This was then compared with previous studies into how many people in a certain area depended on groundwater for drinking water.

In absolute numbers, Florida and California have the most people whose public water supplies could be contaminated, 9.5 and 13 million people, respectively. On a per capita basis, Massachusetts takes the cake, with a shocking 86 to 98% of people relying on groundwater from public supplies that could be contaminated.

The presence of chemicals with an ominous nickname is clearly alarming, but Andrea Tokranov, a research hydrologist at the USGS who led the study, pointed out that there is a silver lining. The new model “can help prioritize areas for future sampling to ensure people are not unknowingly drinking contaminated water,” she said in a statement. “This is especially important for private well users, who may not have information about water quality in their region and may not have the same access to testing and treatment as public water suppliers.”

Although some studies have shown that PFAs can have adverse effects on human health, there is still a lot we don’t know. Like the CDC points out that many studies exposing animals to PFAs have used higher levels than a human would normally be exposed to in everyday life. The CDC also pointed out that the effects may depend on how often people are exposed to the chemicals, and at what levels. Outcomes may also depend on an individual’s personal constitution, access to safe water and health care, and other factors.

Yet there is evidence linking PFAs to some pretty dire health problems in humans, including problems with fertility, developmental delays in children, higher cholesterol levels, reduced immune responses and an increased risk of prostate, kidney and testicular cancer. EPA.

To make the data as accessible as possible, the USGS also has a interactive mapwhich represents the likelihood of PFA contamination in the local groundwater supply. Anyone viewing the map should understand that the map is based on a mathematical model and is not necessarily final. The results also apply to local groundwater, which may not be representative of what is in the drinking water that comes from your tap.

If you’re looking for good news on this front, the findings are a bit more encouraging than what the USGS found in a study it published last year. In that study, this was estimated from water samples collected in 716 sinks almost half of the population was drinking water that contained PFAs. So in a strange way, this could count as progress.