Two weeks ago, an over $10 billion settlement between over 300 communities involving 12,000 public water systems and multinational conglomerate 3M was approved by a U.S. District Court in South Carolina. The chemical manufacturer produces per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, persistent synthetic chemical compounds that linger in water.
3M originally reached this settlement in June 2023 when it promised to pay out $10.3 billion over the course of 13 years to the about 4,000 lawsuit filers who claimed the PFAS manufacturer’s products have contaminated their environments, contributing to a slew of health impacts. Earlier that same month, three other chemical companies — Chemours, Corteva, and DuPont — settled similar claims to the tune of $1.2 billion, also to remove PFAS from public water systems.
The ubiquity of PFAS represents a risk to human and environmental health that has become increasingly concerning. PFAS are used in everything from firefighting foam to food packaging to cosmetics. PFAS are known to cause health detriments such as cancers, developmental issues, and hampered immune system function.
Reporting of PFAS kicked off for the first time recently. A proposed EPA reporting rule that surfaced last year set legally enforceable levels for six PFAS. A press release by the White House just last week finalized this standard. The new rule sets the “first-ever national legally enforceable drinking water standard for PFAS,” limiting their contents in our water to four parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS (the two most common PFAS) — the lowest possible level that could be measured.
Last year, the EPA released the first national set of data monitoring the frequency at which PFAS are showing up in public drinking water systems. The monitoring effort detected PFAS above the newly enacted limits in many water systems. USA Today has published a helpful visualizations of community water systems that tested at or above the new PFAS limits in the past year and all water systems, while Environmental Working Group has generated a map of all water systems that have detected PFAS.
There are many ways to address this emerging health concern, including limiting point source pollution and filtering PFAS once they reach our drinking water. Public water systems have until 2027 to collect three years of monitoring data according to the new rule, meaning that they should be starting now. Then, systems have until 2029 to implement solutions addressing contaminants that supersede EPA standards.
These solutions may be complicated. As a result of their chemical uniqueness and pervasiveness, scientists have been searching for a way to break the unbreakable compound. Other methods have been tried and tested, including filtering PFAS out of water and then incinerating or otherwise disposing of them. The problem with filtering PFAS is that the chemical remains and can still end up in our environment and bodies.
In August 2022, Northwestern University published a study on their method of breaking down PFAS: combining lye and dimethyl sulfoxide, which is currently used in medications for bladder pain, and exposing the mixture to temperatures upwards of 248 degrees Fahrenheit. Revive Environmental has also developed a machine known as the “Annihilator,” which destroys PFAS via supercritical water oxidation to snap the tough carbon-fluorine bonds that make PFAS so indestructible.
Billions of federal funding is on its way to states to remove emerging contaminants, including PFAS. The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund includes $4 billion for emerging contaminants, while the Clean Water State Revolving Fund has earmarked $1 billion. Allocations for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 are viewable on the Water Program Portal’s Outcomes Dashboard. The methods of PFAS removal will be an object of interest as states continue to release their Intended Use Plans for these buckets of funding, as will how the billions of dollars from the chemical manufacturers’ settlements will be distributed.
