Preparing for forever chemicals

Small municipalities like Encampment may soon have to add yet another round of testing when it comes to drinking water following new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Director of Public Works Bill Acord informed the Encampment Town Council on October 10 of the upcoming changes.

“Earlier this year, the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] put out new regulations on something called PFAS. There’s over 15,000 PFAS chemicals. Mainly it’s used for your non-stick cookware, your scotch guard, anything water proving [or] non-stick. It’s in almost everything,” said Acord. According to the EPA, PFAS [Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances] are a group of manufacturing chemicals which have been used since the 1940s. A common characteristic of PFAS is how slowly they break down and how they can build up in people, animals and the environment over time. These chemicals, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, are used in cookware and packaging to keep food from sticking, to make clothes and carpets stain resistant and to increase the effectiveness of firefighting foam.

“Due to their widespread production and use, as well as their ability to move and persist in the environment, surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that most people in the United States have been exposed to some PFAS,” according to the EPA website. “Most known exposures are relatively low, but some can be high, particularly when people are exposed to a concentrated source over long periods of time.”

Acord told the council that approximately 25% of water systems in the United States were contaminated with PFAS and that recent EPA regulations were limiting six of them to “a very, very small amount.”

In April 2024, AP News reported the Biden Administration had finalized limits on PFAS which would require utilities to “reduce them to the lowest they can be reliably measured.” The new rule would cost an estimated $1.5 billion each year, according to the EPA, but would prevent approximately 10,000 deaths and significantly reduce serious illnesses.

According to the EPA, PFAS have been linked to a number of health issues including:

• Reproductive effects such as decreased fertility or increased high blood pressure in pregnant women.
• Developmental effects or delays in children, including low birth weight, accelerated puberty, bone variations, or behavioral changes.
• Increased risk of some cancers, including prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers.
• Reduced ability of the body’s immune system to fight infections, including reduced vaccine response.
• Interference with the body’s natural hormones.
• Increased cholesterol levels and/or risk of obesity.

“In the next three years, we’ll have to be sampling [for PFAS]. If we do detect it and it’s over the threshold, at that point we’ll have to do some sort of upgrade [or] retrofit to the water plant to pull that out,” said Acord. “I feel pretty confident that we don’t given our water supply is pretty pristine but there’s still a possibility.”

Acord added that, as far as he was aware, there was not currently a lab in Wyoming which could test for PFAS in municipal drinking water.

“The filtration technology, it somewhat exists but they’re still working on something that fully pulls it out of the water,” said Acord.

According to the April 2024 article from AP News, work on PFAS treatment for water supplies has already begun in some areas of the United States. Veolia, which operates utilities serving approximately 2.3 million people across six eastern states, had already built PFAS treatment centers for small water systems serving around 150,000 people. The company told AP News, however, they anticipated another 50 sites still needed treatment.