The extent and risk that exposure to carcinogenic PFAS fluorinated compounds poses to communities across the country continues to expand, raising fears of the health implications to populations that are exposed to these toxins. An updated map shows that by mid-July 2019, it has been confirmed that 712 sites in 49 states across the country are affected by PFAS contamination.

Note: PFAS's fall under the category of PFC's - Perfluorinated Chemicals. PFOA, PFOS, etc. The Black Berkey elements that come standard with our Berkey systems do remove these contaminants by over 99.9%. Berkey water filter PFOA test results can be found here.

The latest updates are included in an interactive online map produced by a team of scientists from the Environmental Working Group and Northeastern University's Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute, provides a record of all publicly available data relating to PFAS contamination of public drinking water systems, military and fire-fighter training bases, airports, industrial sites and waste dumps.

Firefighters using PFAS foam to put out a fire

The latest map shows PFAS contamination at 206 military bases, a legacy resulting from the military's use of fire-fighting foam containing PFAS over the last 50 years. The updated map includes 49 new Air Force bases, 6 Air National Guard bases, as well as 43 civilian airports used by the Air National Guard. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) are the two most common PFAS chemicals currently is use. A 2016 EPA health advisory recommends drinking water sources contain less than 70 ppt. According to the EWG, many of these new contaminated sites recently added to the map show PFAS contamination levels higher than 100,000 parts per trillion (ppt).

According to the EWG, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been aware of the health hazards posed by PFAS for decades, yet has failed to take action to limit the amount of PFAS discharged into the environment or to establish any cleanup standards. While the EPA has recently outlined a PFAS action plan, the EWG believes 'it is woefully inadequate', as it fails to address ongoing sources of PFAS contamination, does not address legacy PFAS pollution, and does not require sources of toxic PFAS to report their releases. To address these shortcomings, the EWG has compiled a more comprehensive list of recommendations for federal regulation of PFAS.)

More PFAS foam in action

"The EPA and the Department of Defense have utterly failed to treat PFAS contamination as a crisis demanding swift and decisive action," said Ken Cook, president of EWG, in a statement announcing the discovery of the additional sites. "It's time for Congress to end new PFAS pollution and clean up legacy contamination," Cook said.

In response, proposed legislation of PFAS includes more than 30 bills which have been introduced in the House and Senate in an effort to monitor and regulate PFAS contamination, including monitoring the extent of PFAS pollution, requiring sources of PFAS to report their releases, addressing ongoing PFAS pollution, and cleaning up PFAS contaminated sites affected by legacy contamination.

States across the country are also initiating measures to address the problem posed by PFAS contamination by banning the use of PFAS in certain areas and establishing cleanup standards.

Note: PFAS's fall under the category of PFC's - Perfluorinated Chemicals. PFOA, PFOS, etc. The Black Berkey elements that come standard with our Berkey systems do remove these contaminants by over 99.9%. Berkey water filter PFOA test results can be found here.