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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

#31

Post by awinder »

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.

Not to diminish the Flint Michigan situation, as republicans did when they shuttered the investigative bodies that were looking into it. But how dafuq can the EPA be doing nothing if flint is the rare exception to the rule? If they are to lose credibility for not catching one thing, how much credibility do they get for all the stories we DONT read?

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

#32

Post by throwaway91111 »

hughes wrote: post #3
esun wrote: post #2

The article refers to compounds found in, for example, firefighting foam and not to the fluoride added for preventing tooth decay.

Nevertheless, this study will be added to the arsenal of those seeking to end municipal fluoridation.

Mouthwash seems like a better option than drinking fluoride to improve teeth.

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

#33

Post by 08-15 »

Nice, an article that links to sources in the prrimary scientific literature! Let's see, the link text says "potent immunotoxicants", that's probably a study about the effects of PFAS on the immune system. But no, it's actually some meaningless bullshit about evolution and doesn't even mention the word "fluor" once.

Given that, the term "toxic" is unjustified (it appears that if PFOA is toxic, then so are fatty acids), and so is the claim of "unsafe levels". This is sensationalist bullshit.

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

#34

Post by plussed_reader »

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.

It's been proven that policy decisions & budgeting issues at the state level(and more specifically the governors office) propagated the issues potable water issues Flint has been encountering.

If only there was a conscientious regulator at the state of Michigan....

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

#35

Post by maxerickson »

sageikosa wrote: post #21

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-…

Wells near contamination sources may also be contaminated (they just get less monitoring than municipal supplies).

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

#36

Post by spydum »

VLM wrote: post #27
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 beca…

I must be missing something: doesn't this say published August 2016?

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

#38

Post by AnimalMuppet »

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...

So this stuff is considered 3000 times as bad as cyanide? That's rather disturbing.

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

#39

Post by infogulch »

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,…

This is because water has a nice correlation of units in SI. 1g water = 1 cubic cm = 1 mL, and takes 1 calorie of heat to raise by 1 degree Celsius. (all at atmospheric pressure). See:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=one+trillionth+of+a+lit...

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

#40

Post by atarian »

The_ed17 wrote: post #23

Does anyone have a better map? Would like to see if I'm in the highlighted range or not - I'm pretty close to one.

Your city/county might provide a water quality report on their official website which may include a more specific map.
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