The Dayton Daily News Path Forward initiative strives to find solutions to our community’s most pressing problems, including addressing health concerns posed by PFAS. In this story, we look at steps experts say can be taken at the federal, state, community and personal level to mitigate PFAS.
In the Dayton area, many drinking water sources are contaminated with PFAS at rates higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed contamination limits — four parts per trillion (ppt). That’s equivalent to four grains of sand in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The new limits on water contamination announced by the Biden administration in March go into effect next year, and will be the first of their kind for PFAS. It will take years to implement, and enforcement will be immensely costly to bring all water sources under the limit.
Statehouse action/inaction
Ohio is among 14 states that lack any current policies — adopted or proposed — from their statehouses to protect the general public from exposure to PFAS, according to Safer States, a nonprofit that tracks how states regulate contaminants.
Only a handful of Ohio bills related to PFAS have been signed into law, according to Ohio Environmental Council managing director of water policy Melanie Houston.
Notably, one house bill sponsored by local state Rep. Phil Plummer, R-Butler Twp., prohibited the use of PFAS-filled foam during firefighter training. This was signed into law last year, and although it was “a step in the right direction,” the impact was minimal, Houston said.
But she pointed to another positive Ohio effort: the state’s adoption of guidance levels for PFAS contamination in public drinking water systems.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s office this month, too, announced the expansion of the H2Ohio program, which will include a PFAS study.
The statewide examination of rivers in Montgomery, Miami, Warren and Butler counties and beyond will determine next steps for the state’s PFAS planning, according to state officials.
More can be done in the Statehouse to minimize harm from the cancer-causing chemicals, Houston said.
The Ohio Environmental Council would like to see policies that hold producers of PFAS or PFAS-packed products accountable for pollution by assigning a numeric limit to contamination they put into an area’s surface water, but the group also calls for regulation of PFAS as an entire class.
There are thousands of kinds of forever chemicals that will not be regulated even after the federal drinking water limit comes into effect, Houston said.
What other states are doing
Legislators can take multiple routes in terms of regulating PFAS use at the state level, according to Safer States strategic advisor Gretchen Lee Salter.
In states like California and New Jersey, this looks like bans on the use of the chemicals in paper-based food packaging, cookware, menstrual products and more.
In contrast, states like Maine, Minnesota and Wisconsin have proposals to pass near-blanket bans of the toxic group of substances.
This legislation would prohibit the use of PFAS chemicals, save for a few companies and the military who may qualify for an exemption for “currently unavoidable use,” Salter said.
The U.S. military and manufacturing companies, notably those in the semiconductor industry, say their use of the chemicals is necessary.
Military firefighting foam
The Department of Defense in January published a new military specification that allows the manufacturers of fluorine-free foam, which does not contain forever chemicals, to submit proposals to become qualified for use at sites like military bases.
Salter said the new military specifications are a spark of hope and could represent the beginning of change.
“It’s a really great illustration of what can happen when everybody puts their minds to it,” she said.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base officials have previously said they phased out the use of two of the most common kinds of PFAS — PFOS and PFOA — in the firefighting foam on base. But due to strict federal requirements for the type of foam they can use on base, their current foam contains other variants of forever chemicals.
Producers of PFAS in the 1940s created the group of chemicals to extinguish flames, particularly fire sparked by fuel that powers airplanes. Firefighting foam with PFAS became a common element at airports and military bases throughout the country.
Locally, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base began using this firefighting foam in the 1970s. The U.S. Air Force began phasing out the use of firefighting foam that contained PFOS and PFOA from 2015 to 2017, replacing it with a foam that was more “environmentally responsible.”
But this current foam, although free of PFOS and PFOA, contains other kinds of PFAS — newer versions that are more difficult to filter out of water treatment facilities due to their shorter chain molecules.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base had the third highest detected levels of these compounds in Ohio in state data reviewed by this media outlet. A well tested at WPAFB on July 29, 2020 had PFOS at 236 ppt, according to our investigation that analyzed records from the Ohio EPA.
Dayton filed a $300 million lawsuit against the military base over PFAS contamination in its water in 2021. Water quality experts have also pointed to Dayton International Airport as a potential contamination source.
Local efforts
Montgomery, Greene and Warren counties were among the five counties in Ohio with the most water systems that detected PFAS and PFOA over the U.S. EPA’s proposed limit. Fifteen public water systems in our nine-county region reported samples over 4 ppt.
Dayton’s public water system serves the entire Montgomery County Environmental Services (MCES) distribution system. This means that in addition to serving the city’s 140,407 customers, Dayton sells water to Montgomery County — which in turn provides it to hundreds of thousands of residents across the county — as well as parts of Greene County.
Dayton Daily News requested Dayton’s “PFAS Strategy,” referenced on the city’s website, and city officials declined to share the plan itself, citing “sensitive infrastructure information and attorney-client privilege.”
But the city did share part of its strategy with the newspaper: to supply water from the Miami Well Field to the Ottawa Water Treatment Plant for blending with water from the Mad River Well Field to reduce the PFAS contamination levels in the Ottawa Water Treatment Plant’s treated water.
“Blending will reduce the operations and maintenance expenses associated with treatment,” according to the city.
The most recent PFAS testing data released in November showed levels at the Ottawa plant of 8.5 ppt in August, while the city’s Miami plant was under the detectable level of 5 ppt.
Dayton officials are also looking ahead to projects related to water quality. This includes more than $37.8 million in principal forgiveness loans with 0% interest from the Ohio EPA.
This funding will cover design work for improvements to the water main and the expansion of recharge lagoons at the Miami Wellfield and the construction cost of four production water wells, among other projects.
“Dayton continues to seek funding opportunities to address PFAS, including ongoing litigation to have the remediation costs covered by the PFAS manufacturers and other responsible parties instead of our ratepayers,” according to the city.
Personal advocacy
Individuals on private wells instead of public water systems are also encouraged to have their water tested for PFAS — especially if they live in an area susceptible to PFAS contamination — and can take measures to protect their families.
And environmental and health advocates say people with concerns about their level of exposure to PFAS can be proactive about their own health.
A report by the National Academy of Sciences last year recommended blood testing for PFAS, as well as public health monitoring and a robust campaign to educate the public and medical providers alike about the impact of PFAS exposure.
“The people who live, work, and play in environments where PFAS contamination exceeds standards do not know how to protect themselves from the health risks of exposure,” the report states. “Many have been exposed to PFAS for decades and may continue to be exposed in their homes or workplaces.”
Olga Naidenko, vice president of science investigations at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said research shows people who live near sites contaminated with PFAS frequently have much higher levels of PFAS in their blood compared to the general population.
“Blood testing for PFAS can be very informative, especially for community members whose water, soil, food and air have been affected by PFAS pollution,” she said. “Knowledge of PFAS levels allows the person to make more informed decisions about everyday PFAS exposure.”
Cost can be a barrier for people wanting their blood tested. In general, it costs more to test samples for a larger number of PFAS compounds. Some labs offer at-home tests for $250, while other labs offer tests that cost up to $600.
‘I really just want to know’
A particularly vulnerable population for PFAS exposure is veterans and firefighters who work hands-on with toxic foam. A federal study by the National Cancer Institute shows evidence that U.S. Air Force service workers who were firefighters had elevated levels of PFAS in their bloodstreams.
Navy veteran Les Pomerville, of Beavercreek, fears his work with firefighting foam may have influenced his health issues, including breathing difficulty.
Pomerville served in the U.S. Navy for 12 years, and one of his duties was to extinguish flames on his ship or at his military base. It’s a role he took pride in, as his father was a firefighter.
In the years since, he’s lost many of his fellow servicemen to cancer, and his weeks are busy with medical appointments for his illnesses.
The veteran said blood testing could be a means to better understand his health. It’s an option he himself has talked about with his doctor and hopes to have completed in the near future.
“It would be great to find out what exactly is causing my illness,” he said. “But I really just want to know, one way or the other, if this could be affecting my system or not.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs does not recommend blood testing for PFAS, saying on its website that “blood tests cannot be linked to current or future health conditions.”
Houston disagrees, saying there are parallels between testing required for children and lead exposure and PFAS blood testing: documented health impacts are recorded for PFAS, and research shows the toxic substances are prevalent.
Public Health - Dayton & Montgomery County does not have plans to monitor PFAS the way it monitors lead, but it continues to monitor the actions of Ohio EPA, federal officials and local water systems.
“I certainly think that it’s something health professionals, experts, regulators should be looking at,” Houston said. “That’s helping us to paint the picture for where actions are needed, having that data and that science. Anytime community members can arm themselves with more data to advocate on behalf of themselves and their communities, the better they are situated.”
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