PFAS1 found in drinking water wells in unexpected places

Image: A PFAS water well result for a home in Courtland Township tested [by] Pace Analytical and sampled by Gordon Water Systems. (Courtesy)

GRAND RAPIDS TOWNSHIP, MI — Katey Morse was wondering about cases of cancer among her neighbors when she decided to have her home’s drinking water well tested for fluorochemicals. Morse doesn’t live near the groundwater contamination plume in Belmont, but she does live a mile southwest of the State Disposal Landfill along the East Beltline where Wolverine World Wide dumped sludge in the 1960s that contained toxic chemicals used in Scotchgard at the former Rockford shoe leather tannery.

Test results came back Nov. 3. Her home on the 3100 block of Wildridge Drive NE tested positive for low levels of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA¹ — about 2.7 parts-per-trillion (ppt) for PFOA. That’s well below the Environmental Protection Agency’s lifetime health advisory level of 70-ppt for PFOA in drinking water, but Morse still would rather that level be zero.

“Man-made chemicals should not be showing up at any amount in my water,” said Morse, who moved to the neighborhood in 2014 with her husband and two children. Morse is one of several Kent County property owners reporting positive well […]

Full article: PFAS found in drinking water wells in unexpected places

1. h2oIQ ed.: The source, link above, explains that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances collectively are called PFAS or PFCs — a class of chemicals that includes PFOA and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, or PFOS.

More about: forever chemicals (PFAS, etc.), pollution, and public health