Morgan Watkins, Louisville Public Media
Every day, the Ohio River sends billions of gallons of water flowing previous Louisville’s pumping station, the place the Kentucky metropolis’s utility sucks it as much as flip it into faucet water.
To guarantee it tastes good and is secure to drink, a small crew of scientists and technicians is continually testing the water for pH, odors, heavy metals, and microbes.
But not like many smaller municipal utilities within the U.S., Louisville Water often checks for PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
That’s a category of chemical substances utilized by producers for many years to make issues like nonstick pans, cosmetics, raincoats, meals wrappers, and firefighting foam.
Research studies have linked PFAS to health risks like most cancers, decreased immune system functioning, excessive ldl cholesterol, and developmental delays in youngsters.
They’re also referred to as “forever chemicals” as a result of their robust chemical buildings make them degrade extremely slowly within the atmosphere.
Today, they litter soil and water sources all over the world and may be discovered in the blood of virtually everybody within the U.S.
One sort of PFAS that the Louisville water technicians are monitoring is HFPO-DA, additionally recognized by a commerce identify, GenX.
Just over a yr in the past, staff observed an surprising enhance within the degree of GenX detected in a pattern of the uncooked, untreated water drawn from the Ohio River for filtering and processing.
The GenX ranges Louisville present in December 2024 have been 15 occasions the studying from the earlier month: 52 components per trillion versus 3.4 ppt.
“A part per trillion is like one second in 32,800 years. Put your head around that, right?” mentioned Peter Goodmann, the town utility’s director of water high quality and analysis.
He provided one other means to think about it: One half per trillion can be a single drop of water in 20 Olympic swimming swimming pools.
Goodmann instructed KFF Health News and NPR he wasn’t fearful about native clients’ security, as a result of the elevated ranges have been nonetheless fairly low.
Risks posed by low PFAS concentrations are measured over a lifetime of publicity, he mentioned. And latest knowledge from Louisville exhibits the PFAS levels in city drinking water fell again inside deliberate federal security limits.
Plus, water is only one means individuals may be uncovered to PFAS, Goodmann added. “Because you get a lot more of these pollutants from packaging, from prefixed food, cake mixes, weird things, you know, popcorn boxes,” he mentioned.
Louisville Water’s knowledge confirmed that the elevated ranges of GenX within the water pattern drawn in December 2024 fell as soon as the water underwent typical remedy and filtering.
Federal Regulation Fight
The federal authorities has lengthy regulated the degrees of certain contaminants in consuming water, resembling arsenic, E. coli, and lead.
But the Environmental Protection Agency didn’t problem rules concerning PFAS till 2024, throughout the closing yr of the Biden administration. The new limits utilized to six types of PFAS in consuming water. Starting in 2029, utilities that exceeded the bounds would have been required to deal with the water to cut back the contamination.
But after Donald Trump’s reelection, new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced the company will hold the foundations for less than two sorts of PFAS, known as PFOA and PFOS, however drop the restrictions on the opposite 4 sorts, together with GenX.
In addition, the EPA introduced it should give water utilities two extra years, till 2031, to adjust to the remaining guidelines, attributing the change partially to the monetary burden on rural water vegetation.
Many utilities, massive and small, could have to invest in infrastructure to remove PFAS.
A federal study estimated about 45% of U.S. faucet water comprises not less than one sort of PFAS.
When it introduced the ultimate PFAS limits, the Biden administration anticipated that up to 10% of the estimated 66,000 U.S. public consuming water methods affected by these rules may need PFAS ranges excessive sufficient to require them to take motion to cut back the contamination.
Finding the Source
Goodmann’s crew traced the elevated ranges of PFAS up the Ohio River, previous Cincinnati, and thru Appalachian forests, all the way in which to a West Virginia manufacturing unit about 400 miles upstream.
There, the Chemours Co. makes use of GenX to make fluoropolymers, a plastic important to the semiconductors that energy telephones.
Its Washington Works facility close to Parkersburg, West Virginia, has a history of PFAS pollution.
A lawyer, Robert Bilott, fought the plant’s earlier proprietor, DuPont, in courtroom, ultimately revealing the corporate knew {that a} sort of PFAS it was utilizing, PFOA, was poisonous however didn’t disclose that data.
DuPont went on to settle various lawsuits that claimed it contaminated native environments with without end chemical substances. The firm has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
Chemours was spun off from DuPont in 2015.
The Louisville Water crew’s calculations finally confirmed that the December 2024 spike in GenX ranges corresponded to publicly accessible knowledge from Chemours about its chemical discharges into the Ohio River.
In Chemours’ responses to a lawsuit filed by a West Virginia environmental group, the corporate denied its discharges have been linked to Louisville’s GenX spike. (Louisville isn’t a celebration within the lawsuit.)
The firm additionally contended that sampling knowledge confirmed ranges of GenX within the river and in downstream utilities’ handled consuming water are “indisputably safe.”
PFAS Removal Will Challenge Water Utilities
Under present federal environmental rules, Chemours can launch some chemical substances into the Ohio River. But it has exceeded the authorized limits repeatedly over a number of years, in accordance with courtroom filings and the EPA.
That’s why the West Virginia Rivers Coalition filed its lawsuit in 2024.
The EPA took enforcement action in 2023, when it mentioned it discovered Chemours’ West Virginia manufacturing unit had repeatedly exceeded allow limits for 2 sorts of without end chemical substances, GenX and PFOA.
But the West Virginia Rivers Coalition mentioned in a courtroom submitting that the EPA’s consent order for Chemours “is not being diligently prosecuted.”
Chemours declined to reply questions from KFF Health News and NPR, citing ongoing litigation, besides to level out that Louisville’s “finished drinking water is safe for consumption,” with PFAS ranges beneath the EPA’s regulatory limits, as said on Louisville Water’s website and within the annual water quality report from Cincinnati, which additionally attracts from the Ohio River.
As analysis into the well being results of PFAS publicity continues, environmental advocates say it’s crucial for firms to satisfy the restrictions set by authorities permits.
“Environmental regulatory permitting is a license to pollute,” mentioned Nick Hart, the water coverage director for the Kentucky Waterways Alliance.
“You’re permitting someone to put something into the atmosphere, into water, into soil that would not be there otherwise. And so when we talk about the safe levels,” he mentioned, “stop using the word ‘safe,’ right? This is the maximum allowable limit.”
It is feasible to take away PFAS from consuming water. For instance, Louisville’s utility is spending about $23 million to revamp its powdered activated carbon system, which is one technique used to take out PFAS.
But PFAS removing can get costly, particularly for small, rural cities, Hart mentioned. Preventing contaminants resembling PFAS from getting right into a group’s consuming water provide is less complicated and more cost effective in contrast with eradicating it on the again finish, he added.
In Chemours’ responses to the lawsuit, the corporate acknowledged that its violating its present allow however famous it’s working with authorities regulators on an eventual repair.
The federal decide within the case, Joseph Goodwin, determined that wasn’t quick sufficient.
In August, he ordered Chemours to immediately stop overpolluting. The firm shortly filed an enchantment.
The West Virginia Rivers Coalition declined to talk with KFF Health News and NPR however did level to its August news release on the decide’s ruling.
“This is a victory for public health and the Ohio River,” Autumn Crowe, the group’s deputy director, mentioned within the assertion. “The Court recognized what communities have known for years: Chemours has been polluting our water and ignoring its legal obligations.”
In a courtroom submitting for the case, Goodmann mentioned that elevated ranges of GenX may make it tougher for water utilities resembling Louisville’s to adjust to federal guidelines for secure consuming water.
In regard to Chemours particularly, Goodmann instructed KFF Health News and NPR that when authorities regulators problem the corporate’s subsequent allow, he needs them to take into consideration the water remedy vegetation downstream.
“So what we do is manage risk, and we start that at the river,” he mentioned. “It sounds weird, but source water protection — keeping the stuff out of the river — is a big deal.”
This article is from a partnership that features Louisville Public Media, NPR, and KFF Health News.
