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Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

news.harvard.edu

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Re: Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

#21

Post by sageikosa »

The study found that PFASs were detectable at the minimum reporting levels required by the EPA in 194 out of 4,864 water supplies in 33 states across the United States.

So, about 4% of water supplies had something at the minimum reporting levels; which must be above the detection limits, but may not be at action levels. I'd probably be more worried about heavy metals and organics in some of those locations than fire-fighting foam, but I drink groundwater, not surface-based treatment plant water.

Re: Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

#22

Post by sageikosa »

sndean wrote: post #10
refurb wrote: post #6

had at least one water sample that measured at or above the EPA safety limit of 70 parts per trillion (ng/L) Just for reference, here are the EPA safety limits for other chemicals....[1] Cyanide - 200,000 ng/L Lead - 15,000 ng/L Mercury - 2,000 ng/L Benzene - 5,000 ng/L Glyphosate - 700,000 ng/L PCBs - 500 ng/L [1] https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/table-re...

Not really related, but even as a scientist I really don't understand how ng/L == parts-per-trillion. I know that's a correct conversion, but it doesn't doesn't make much sense. I guess that's why part-per notation are called pseudo-units. A more substantive comment: Some of these are particularly scary, especially if you have a job where you're potentially exposed. For example, for benzene has a pretty strong odor,…

Some materials are reported in mass, some in volume. I used to do groundwater plume maps for superfund sites, and the data units varied by compound.

Re: Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

#24

Post by maxerickson »

sndean wrote: post #10
refurb wrote: post #6

had at least one water sample that measured at or above the EPA safety limit of 70 parts per trillion (ng/L) Just for reference, here are the EPA safety limits for other chemicals....[1] Cyanide - 200,000 ng/L Lead - 15,000 ng/L Mercury - 2,000 ng/L Benzene - 5,000 ng/L Glyphosate - 700,000 ng/L PCBs - 500 ng/L [1] https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/table-re...

Not really related, but even as a scientist I really don't understand how ng/L == parts-per-trillion. I know that's a correct conversion, but it doesn't doesn't make much sense. I guess that's why part-per notation are called pseudo-units. A more substantive comment: Some of these are particularly scary, especially if you have a job where you're potentially exposed. For example, for benzene has a pretty strong odor,…

It's because the liter was originally defined as 1 kilogram of water.

For the various concentrations, the volume and mass of the displaced water is ~0.

Re: Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

#25

Post by sageikosa »

cmelbye wrote: post #11
seattle_spring wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That won't stop the conspiracy theorists from having a field day on this one.

I would too, if I theorized that there were toxic compounds in my water, and then found a study that proves that to be correct.

There are toxic compounds in your water...and your food...and that sunlight? Toxic UV.

Re: Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

#26

Post by general_ai »

the_gastropod wrote: post #8

Luckily this will all be fixed by Scott Pruitt, by getting rid of silly safety limits (read: business killing regulations) all together!

Your comment would hold a lot more weight if EPA or some other massive government agency found it possible to help people in Flint, MI, which did not have drinkable water for years now, and still don't have it.

Re: Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

#27

Post by VLM »

herbps10 wrote: post #7

I work with one of the authors of the Hu et al. paper that this article is based on. I'm happy to relay any questions people have to her.

The article seems to play extremely fast and loose with watershed vs waste treatment plant sludge vs drinking water all being the same. Which is it?

I'm particularly interested because I live in a community marked blue and I'm sure our industrially polluted river tested positive, yet our drinking water comes from 800 foot deep wells and is extremely hard although otherwise extremely clean.

So are we contaminated because somehow the deep wells are contaminated with just this unusual pollutant, or is our industrially polluted river (or some old industrial EPA superfund site, who knows) verified as being polluted, or is our waste treatment plant essentially failing us? (Or of course a combination)

In an era of infotainment and clickbait and fake news its sad to see harvard in the domain name, but its the current year, its not the authors fault that someone is profiting off scientific research, etc.

Its surprisingly difficult to figure out the percentage of people who drink deep municipal well water vs groundwater vs near-ground-water (shallow wells often private and contaminated). Therefore I don't know if my situation of drinking deep well water (presumably safe) but living in a contaminated area is unusual or typical.

Re: Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

#28

Post by mikeash »

cmelbye wrote: post #11
seattle_spring wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That won't stop the conspiracy theorists from having a field day on this one.

I would too, if I theorized that there were toxic compounds in my water, and then found a study that proves that to be correct.

Even if the ones found were not the ones you theorized?

Re: Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

#29

Post by throwaway91111 »

general_ai wrote: post #26
the_gastropod wrote: post #8

Luckily this will all be fixed by Scott Pruitt, by getting rid of silly safety limits (read: business killing regulations) all together!

Your comment would hold a lot more weight if EPA or some other massive government agency found it possible to help people in Flint, MI, which did not have drinkable water for years now, and still don't have it.

I'm not sure how anyone is better off with reduced regulations. Except possibly developers.

Re: Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states

#30

Post by arikr »

herbps10 wrote: post #7

I work with one of the authors of the Hu et al. paper that this article is based on. I'm happy to relay any questions people have to her.

1) Are tap water filters likely effective in removing the dangerous compounds?

2) Is there any way we can search up our own zip code to see at a higher level of resolution whether our home water supply is impacted?

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