What you should know about the new EPA rules
PFAS or “Forever Chemicals” explained
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic chemicals that take a long time to degrade.
Loveland resident Sharon Scovanner drinks only filtered water.
She is concerned about reported levels of PFAS in her city’s public water system and the potential health risks posed by continued exposure to these chemicals that remain in the environment and human bodies.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are chemicals first created in the 1940s. They have been linked to certain cancers, fertility problems, and other health issues.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced new regulations for PFAS levels in public water systems in April. The agency estimates that these regulations will “prevent thousands of deaths and reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses attributable to PFAS.”
Systems must begin monitoring for PFAS by 2027 and treating PFAS in water by 2029.
The USA TODAY Network’s Ohio bureau spoke with Ohio residents, researchers and officials to get a sense of why these regulations are in place and what impact they will have on the state.
What is PFAS?: Each of us has a certain amount of chemicals in our bodies that stay with us forever.
“We cannot remove it from our environment”
Cincinnati attorney Robert Bilott raised the alarm about PFAS after visiting Parkersburg, West Virginia, in 2001 and alerting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the impacts on local residents. Bilott dedicated his career to fighting PFAS manufacturers like DuPont and 3M. The movie Dark Waters is based on his story, with Mark Ruffalo playing the role of Bilott.
Dr. Susan Pinney, professor of environmental health at the University of Cincinnati, said many studies have shown that PFAS has health effects across all age groups and it is important to minimize exposure as much as possible.
“Knowing that it will likely be present in our environment for hundreds of years, we can do our best to prevent any from getting into our bodies. And that’s exactly what the EPA is trying to do with its water standards and water regulations,” she said.
PFAS exposure is linked to delayed puberty and increased cholesterol
Studies have shown that the presence of these chemicals in the human body is linked to delayed puberty, kidney and testicular cancer, fertility problems and increased cholesterol levels.
Pinney’s study involved examining three milestones of puberty: breast development, first appearance of pubic hair, and first menstrual period. The study focused on girls in Greater Cincinnati and the San Francisco Bay Area to measure the effects of PFAS exposure.
The study found evidence that the compound PFOA in particular is linked to delayed puberty. Pinney said the delay is related to the production of cholesterol in the liver.
“Cholesterol is the building block of all hormones, and there are certain types of cholesterol that are used in building the reproductive hormones in girls. So we think it’s because of that and that’s why they have lower hormone levels and therefore later puberty development,” she said.
The study found that girls with more PFAS in their serum had a lower BMI by the time they had their first menstrual period, which Pinney said raises questions about potential effects on various diseases later in life. The researchers also found that girls with PFAS exposure may be more susceptible to developing polycystic ovary syndrome.
“People who work in the lab studying PFAS will tell you that the cells are sticky, which I find very interesting. You know, if you think about it, what would happen then? What would happen then in the ovaries? We continue to study these things,” Pinney said.
21 water systems in Ohio have high levels of chemicals.
Twenty-one public water systems in Ohio have levels of persistent chemicals that may be harmful to health, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The city of Cleveland Heights and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton had the highest PFAS levels in the state.
Pinney said that in many communities, levels are now above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulatory standard, but achieving that standard will require installing improved technologies to reduce PFAS levels.
More: How to reduce your exposure to chemicals
“I don’t think anyone is against lowering the limits,” she said. “The question is what it will cost. And where will the money come from?”
Raising awareness and reducing PFAS in drinking water is a personal struggle for Scovanner because his father, a Marine at Camp Lejeune, died of one of the related cancers from drinking water on base.
“I don’t want what happened to my father to happen to anyone. It’s horrible,” she said.
Scovanner has kept a notebook of pollution levels in Loveland since December, made up of publicly available information or public records requests. She said Loveland made claims in a federal lawsuit about the health effects of PFAS that differ from the information the city gives its residents.
“All I know is that they haven’t told us. They tell us to keep drinking the water, they say it’s safe, but that’s not true. No official government agency that has any credibility on this matter would agree with that,” she said.
Chris Wojnicz, Loveland’s deputy city manager, said he believes the city has done the best it can to share the information it has with the public.
“We continue to assure our customers that our water quality meets all current and applicable Ohio EPA standards,” he said, noting that Loveland is regulated by Ohio and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) authorities.
Wojnicz estimates the city will pay $17.5 million to implement granular activated carbon treatment, which he believes is the most cost-effective option. The city could fund part of the cost through state grants. Wojnicz estimates 15 percent could come from payments from the class-action lawsuit against PFAS manufacturers such as Dupont and 3M.
Lauren Edna, a former Loveland resident who now lives in Lima, said it was not easy for city officials to tell residents they had to filter their water, but people could not drink water that could be harmful to them.
What does a treatment look like?
Battelle, a research institute based in Columbus, has been aware of PFAS for about 20 years.
Amy Dindal, Battelle’s environmental and agriculture business manager, said researchers helped epidemiologists collect data for a health study in Parkersburg, West Virginia, that became part of the story in “Dark Waters.”
Five years later, Battelle researchers helped clean up a U.S. Navy site and discovered mysterious foam coming from an air stripper, a machine that forces air through contaminated water to evaporate certain chemical compounds.
Battelle develops technology to eliminate the “forever chemicals” PFAS
Columbus-based Battelle is developing technology to eliminate PFAS, or “forever chemicals.”
“We took that to our lab and identified it as PFOA and PFOS,” she said. “That was before it was really on the radar from a local agency perspective. But we knew that sites were encountering this new contaminant. We recognized it then.”
Since then, Battelle has focused on identifying and treating PFAS at the source, or where they contaminate the environment, before they enter public water systems.
The institute also developed a technology called the PFAS Annihilator to safely dispose of PFAS. The Annihilator uses heat exchangers, salt separators and a reactor to convert a concentrated PFAS stream into clean water with no byproducts.
Battelle also uses granular activated carbon filters to treat wastewater. The same technology is used to treat some public water systems.
In her study, Pinney found that girls in Northern Kentucky had higher serum PFAS levels than girls in Greater Cincinnati, which she attributes to the fact that Greater Cincinnati Water Works began using granular activated carbon filters in the mid-1990s.
“When we did our first serum analysis of these girls in 2004, we could immediately see a difference in PFAS levels when we compared the girls from Greater Cincinnati to those from Northern Kentucky because Northern Kentucky didn’t have (carbon filtration), so we could see it right away,” she said.
Pinney noted that granular activated carbon filters have since been used in water systems in Northern Kentucky.
Battelle has developed PFAS Signature technology to examine PFAS samples and identify them among hundreds of different PFAS compounds – far more than the compounds currently regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This helps researchers find the source of a particular PFAS sample, such as direct sources like manufacturing products or firefighting foam, Dindal said, which can help them find the best methods to address the contamination.
“If you understand where these sources come from, you can better combat them before they get into drinking water,” she said.
It could take 10 years to reduce PFAS in the body
PFAS have a half-life of about four years. Pinney said it would likely take a decade for a measurable decrease in the health effects of PFAS to occur, assuming no additional substances are introduced into the body during that time.
“Whatever I drink in my water today, it will take about four years for half of it to leave my body. So you see, if we reduce the amount, the levels and serum will go down over time,” she said.
To begin this process, drinking water must be subject to the new regulations. This means that drinking water must not only be treated at the municipal level, but PFAS must also be addressed at the source.
Dindal said treating PFAS in drinking water is like treating a symptom of a disease, not fighting the disease itself.
Meanwhile, Scovanner remains concerned about her city’s groundwater reservoir, which lies near the Little Miami River.
“It looks beautiful here,” Scovanner said, pointing to the green fields above the aquifer and the lush trees that line them. “We just don’t know what lies beneath.”
Erin Glynn is a reporter for the Ohio Bureau of the USA TODAY Network, which covers the Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
