PFOS in Water – Is there are formal drinking water standard?
Source: New Hamphire Public Radio – 11/5/2018
“Right now, state regulators are doing something they’ve never done before: writing their own limit on a chemical contaminant in drinking water.
It’s called a maximum contaminant level, or MCL. In the past, like most states, New Hampshire has used federal standards as its default MCLs.
Now, the legislature has told the Department of Environmental Services for the first time to write its own MCL, from scratch.
It’ll require public water systems to routinely test and treat drinking water for four types of likely toxic PFAS chemicals – known as PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS and PFNA.
The MCLs will also become the state’s new ambient groundwater quality standard for the chemicals, meaning if cleanup will be required if they’re found in groundwater at a higher level.
Right now, the state uses the federal government’s advice of 70 parts per trillion as its groundwater cleanup standard. The state has no formal MCL for PFAS in drinking water.
The new MCL is expected to be more stringent than that EPA guidance, and will require costly new testing and treatment protocols for drinking water systems around the state.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, were once common in a range of industrial and household products. They have been linked to serious health problems and have contaminated water supplies across the state and country……..”
Get Your Drinking Water Tested for PFOS/PFAS