Water Testing for PFAS: How to Protect Your Family

The abbreviation PFAS is short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. This is a very large group of synthetic chemicals—more than 15,000 so far—manufactured since the 1940s. These chemicals have been valued for their ability to resist heat, water, oil, and stains. This resistance has made them very valuable in household and industrial products. 

However, the composition of these chemicals makes them problematic once they are loose in the environment. Their ingredients have some of the strongest bonds of any chemicals in the world. This makes PFAS resistant to breaking down under typical environmental or biological conditions. What that means is that once PFAS enter the environment, they can persist for decades or centuries. This is why it is so essential to find out if there are PFAS in the water supplies provided to your family. If they make their way into your family’s bodies, they can accumulate and persist there, too. This incredible persistence is why PFAS are often called “forever chemicals.”

1. Where are PFAS found in industry, and what are their common uses?

Because of their usefulness, PFAS have been widely adopted across an extensive range of industries. They are present in virtually every home in the country. Here are the places you will find PFAS in industry and consumer products:

Industrial Uses:

• Aerospace and Aviation: PFAS are found in hydraulic fluids, fuel system linings, and engine components where high heat and chemical resistance are required.
• Automotive and Electronics: They are utilized for wiring, circuit boards, semiconductors, gaskets, and seals wherever non-stick, weatherproof, and insulating properties are needed.
• Manufacturing: They are valuable when used in lubricants, coatings, and degreasers for metal parts.
• Construction: In this industry, they are added to paints, sealants, roofing membranes, adhesives and anyplace that durability and waterproofing are needed.
• Firefighting: They are essential components in aqueous foams that are used to put out fuel-based fires at airports, military sites, and fire training facilities.

Everyday and Consumer Products:

• Non-Stick Cookware: PFAS rose to prominence when used to create Teflon coatings for non-stick cookware.
• Water- and Stain-Resistant Fabrics: Anything that needs to be water-resistant or stain-resistant like raincoats, shoes, carpets, and furniture upholstery, is often treated with PFAS coatings.
• Food Packaging: All those grease-resistant food wrappers typically contain PFAS, such as takeout boxes, fast food wrappers, popcorn bags, bakery papers, and more. (In recent months, some fast food companies have announced that they are eliminating PFAS from their wrappers.)
• Personal Care Items: Some sunscreens, skin lotions, foundation, mascara, toothpaste, dental floss, and shampoos contain PFAS to improve their texture and make them last longer once they are in use. 
• Cleaning Supplies: PFAS are found in waxes, polishes, stain removers, and even some detergents.

Because of their widespread use, PFAS may be present in both obvious and unexpected products in homes and workplaces. In any modern home, PFAS are likely to be present in hundreds of places and products.

2. How do PFAS get into municipal or private well water supplies?

PFAS can reach drinking water through multiple contamination routes, depending on how they are used or disposed of:

1. Industrial Discharge: PFAS are released directly into surface water and groundwater whenever there are releases of contaminated water or chemicals from facilities that manufacture or process products using these chemicals.
2. Firefighting Foam: Repeated use or accidental spills of firefighting foam distribute these chemicals at airports, industrial sites, or military bases. These foams seep into soils and eventually reach groundwater or run off into lakes or rivers. The areas around military bases, firefighting training and airports are very commonly highly contaminated with PFAS. 
3. Landfills and Wastewater: Household or industrial products containing PFAS often go down the drain and end up in water supplies. Products that have been disposed of in the garbage end up in landfills, slowly leaching PFAS into soils and groundwater. Municipal wastewater plants cannot effectively filter PFAS, so these chemicals may be discharged into rivers or applied to farmland as the “sludge” that remains after water treatment.
4. Agricultural Runoff: When treated sewage sludge contaminated with PFAS is spread on fields, the chemicals can percolate into groundwater or drain off the ground during rainfall.
5. Private Septic Systems and Unintentional Leaks: Leaking septic systems from homes that dispose of PFAS-laden products down their drains can also contribute to rural well contamination, especially where groundwater is shallow or bedrock is fractured.

Movement through Groundwater and Bedrock: Unlike many chemicals that stick to soil or bedrock, the non-stick qualities of PFAS keep these chemicals from adhering to sand, gravel, or even some bedrock. They can remain dissolved in groundwater, gradually inching through fractures in bedrock or traveling through aquifers over months, years, or even decades. This means PFAS can contaminate private wells and community water supplies far from and years later than the original pollution incident. 

3. Why are PFAS so persistent and hard to remove from the environment and water supplies?

It’s those incredibly strong bonds between the PFAS atoms that turn them into “forever chemicals.” These bonds resist degradation by sunlight, bacteria, and chemical processes such as oxidation.

Environmental Persistence:

• PFAS do not break down into harmless components in soil or water. This also makes it hard for them to be eliminated from human or animal bodies.
• They can easily leach deep into the ground from products deposited in landfills or run off farms in rain or irrigation water. In liquid form, they can soak into the ground and make their way into groundwater.
• In fractured bedrock aquifers, PFAS can continue to migrate for many years, gradually contaminating distant water sources. This ability to migrate through water and soil makes tracing the path of contamination and cleanup very difficult.

Resistance to Water Treatment:

• Ordinary municipal water treatment, like filtration, chemical disinfection, and allowing solids to settle out of the water, doesn’t remove PFAS.
• Specialized treatment methods are required to remove or at least reduce PFAS levels in water intended for human consumption. Granular activated carbon, high-quality reverse osmosis, or ion-exchange media can effectively reduce PFAS levels in tap or well water.

This extreme persistence and water mobility mean even wells considered “protected” by deep soil or rock (bedrock aquifers) may become contaminated many years after the initial release of the chemicals.

4. What areas or regions in the U.S. are at greatest risk for PFAS contamination?

PFAS contamination has been documented in all 50 states, but certain regions and communities are especially at risk due to local industry, military activity, or land use patterns:

1. Regions with Major Chemical Manufacturing: The Ohio Valley (especially parts of West Virginia and Ohio, where PFAS were manufactured for decades) shows extensive evidence of PFAS contamination. Minnesota, Michigan, New Jersey all have a history of large PFAS-using factories and evidence of plumes of contamination spreading through groundwater.
2. Military Bases and Airports: New York, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, California, and Colorado all have military or commercial airports with extensive histories of using firefighting foam. Michigan and Delaware also have “PFAS hotspots” linked to former military base sites.
3. Areas where Sewage Sludge Has Been Used as Fertilizer: Maine and portions of the Upper Midwest, where farm fields have been treated for years with treated sewage solids, have higher levels of contamination.
4. Major Population Centers: New Jersey, New York and other densely populated, industrialized areas have been contaminated by industrial releases of PFAS. In the South, cities that rely on river water that comes downstream from industrial zones show elevated PFAS levels. Even rural areas far from manufacturing can be affected if they are near airports, military installations, landfills, or have a history of sludge application to the land. 

5. What are the health effects of being exposed to PFAS in water?

PFAS are of great concern when they accumulate in human blood, organs, and tissues over time. The two best-studied PFAS chemicals—PFOA and PFOS—are linked to numerous harms to health. The following health problems have been traced to exposure to these two PFAS chemicals:

• Elevated cholesterol levels (especially the “bad” type—LDL.
• Changes in liver enzymes and increased risk of kidney disease.
• Reduced antibody response after being vaccinated and higher infection rates.
• Lower birth weight and slower growth in children.
• Learning and behavioral problems among children.
• Elevated risk, especially for testicular and kidney cancer.
• Thyroid hormone imbalances resulting in changes to menstruation, reduced fertility, and increased preeclampsia risk in pregnancy.

The worst effects result from long-term exposure; however, PFAS can build up even from relatively low-level exposure.

6. How can families or individuals find out if their water contains PFAS?

Accurate test results require a professional, experienced laboratory. “Home kits” available in home improvement stores are generally unreliable because even harmful concentrations can be very tiny beyond the ability of the test to detect. You won’t be able to detect PFAS in tap or well water because most contaminated water looks, smells, and tastes normal. Competent, professional labs can detect levels of PFAs contamination down to several parts of PFAS per trillion parts of water.

1. Who should test their drinking water?

• Anyone living near known or past sources of industrial chemicals or near military bases, commercial airports, landfills, or farms that have spread biosolids.
• All private well owners in high-risk regions. Owners of wells must monitor their own water quality because no agency monitors or mandates the water quality of private wells.
• Families with small children, infants, pregnant women, or immunocompromised members who are likely to be more sensitive to these chemicals. 
• Residents of cities or regions where water systems have previously detected PFAS or have issued PFAS advisories.

7. What should be done if PFAS are detected in drinking water samples?

It’s important to remove these chemicals from the water that will be served to your family. Here are the solutions you can consider:  

1. Install Treatment Systems:

• Granular Activated Carbon: One of the best systems to protect households from PFAS.
• Reverse Osmosis: These filters, typically installed under sinks or in whole-house systems, are very effective.
• Ion-Exchange Systems: These systems work well for some types of PFAS. The system will often list the PFAS it will remove. You can also check with the manufacturer.
• National Science Foundation Certification: This foundation certifies some filters specifically for PFAS removal. Look for NSF/ANSI Standard 53 or 58 certification.

2. Private Well Owners:

• If you find PFAS in your private water well, ask state or local health departments for remediation advice, financial assistance, and updates on any regional contamination that has been reported. These agencies may provide you with bottled water or filtration in emergencies.

3. Municipal Water Customers:

• Look on your water utility’s website for Consumer Confidence Reports for the results of their contamination testing. If PFAS are not listed in these results, ask them if they test for PFAS. If they don’t perform this testing, you will need to be responsible for testing your own municipal water. 

8. Can boiling water or common filters remove PFAS?

No. Boiling water does NOT destroy or remove PFAS. Boiling will actually increase the concentration of PFAS in the water as it evaporates. Ordinary, inexpensive pitcher or faucet carbon filters are not capable of removing PFAS. Only specially certified GAC, reverse osmosis, or ion-exchange filtration systems have proven to effectively remove PFAS. Even then, not all models are certified specifically for PFAS. Look on the packaging to see if it has NSF certification to remove PFAS. 

9. What should a family do if they are concerned about PFAS in their water?

The first step is to get your tap or well water professionally tested. This is the only reliable, accurate method of measuring any PFAS chemicals in your water. Once you know exactly what is in your water, you can design the perfect system to remove any concerning contaminants. 

ETR Laboratories Is a Reliable, Experienced Source for Your Water Testing

The experienced scientists and technicians at ETR Laboratories have prepared a test of PFAS/PFOA especially for those families and consumers who want to know what’s in their water. In just a few days, you can have an accurate analysis of the quality of your water in your hands. Then you can devise the right water filtration to keep your family healthy. Reach out to ETR Laboratories today to get your PFAS/PFOA test started today!