As federal regulators weigh the possibility of regulating a harmful set of chemicals found in millions of Americans' drinking water, no testing conducted in Arkansas appears to show the chemicals' presence in the state's drinking water.
Most people have been exposed to the chemicals, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says.
Testing for the chemicals in Arkansas' drinking water took place at the state's largest utilities from 2013-15 and was measured if detected above a level established by the EPA. It was not detected at that level at any of the state's utilities, but critics have said the level the EPA used was not low enough to detect concentrations of the chemicals that remain harmful.
The 14 chemicals fall under the category of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) are the most-studied PFAS, and research shows they can cause "reproductive and development, liver and kidney, and immunological effects in laboratory animals," according to the EPA. Both have caused tumors in animals.
PFAS don't break down in the environment or in a person's body, so they remain there and build up with the addition of more PFAS. Certain filtration systems can remove them from tap water.
Manufacturers have phased out use of perfluorooctanoic and perfluorooctanesulfonic acids, according to the EPA. Perfluorooctanoic acid has been replaced by a category of chemicals known as GenX chemicals, according to the agency.
The chemicals have drawn comparisons to DDT, a pesticide that was heralded in the 1940s for its efficiency and was used worldwide before it was ultimately banned in 1972 because of adverse health effects.
People can be exposed to PFAS chemicals via some food packaging, food grown with PFAS-contaminated soil or water, certain commercial household products, certain industrial facilities, other living things or drinking water, according to the EPA's website.
From 2013-15, utilities with 10,000 or more customers were required under federal rules to test for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, perfluorooctanoic acid and 12 more PFAS chemicals. During that time, none of the Arkansas utilities pulled samples that had detectable levels of the chemicals, according to EPA data.
But, across the country, dozens of utilities serving millions of customers did. Some have levels hundreds of times higher than recommended.
Arkansas' drinking water sources appear to be far away from potential industrial sources of pollution, said Jeff Stone, director of the Arkansas Department of Health's engineering section.
Major drinking water sources, such as Lake Fort Smith or Beaver Lake, are surface water sources in forested areas. "Nothing can be better than a lake surrounded by forestland," Stone said. "That's our optimal situation."
Industry is also far enough from the watersheds of Central Arkansas Water's two water sources, Lake Maumelle and Lake Winona.
"Because we own our lakes, and we protect them, and we don't have that type of development around our water sources, we really don't have an issue with those chemicals," said Doug Shackelford, a spokesman for the utility.
"It would be really difficult for them to find their way into our lake," he said.
The sampling was required under the third round of the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule. The rule requires testing for dozens of chemicals over a three-year period, followed by two years of analysis of the results and decisions on whether to move forward with regulating any of the "contaminant candidates."
After trying to stop the Department of Health and Human Services from releasing a report recommending even lower levels of PFAS concentrations in drinking water, the EPA has traveled to states with high PFAS levels and intends to spend the fall working on a PFAS management plan.
The EPA's detection level for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid was 0.04 micrograms per liter, and for perfluorooctanoic acid it was 0.02 micrograms per liter (20 parts per trillion).
In several states, the health limit is much lower than the detection level.
The Department of Health and Human Services recommended in a draft toxicological profile released in June that the health advisory level be 0.007 micrograms per liter (7 parts per trillion) for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid and 0.011 micrograms per liter (11 parts per trillion) for perfluorooctanoic acid. Those are several times lower than the EPA's level of 0.070 migragrams per liter.
The draft profile also said research suggests links between perfluorooctanoic acid and pregnancy-induced hypertension/pre-eclampsia, liver damage, higher cholesterol, higher risk for thyroid disease, decreased antibody response to vaccines, increased risk of asthma, increased risk of fertility issues and decreases in birth weight. Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid was associated with all of those except the asthma risk.
The draft profile notes 2017 findings from the International Agency for Research on Cancer that perfluorooctanoic acid is possibly carcinogenic.
In a report last year, one of the labs that assisted the EPA reviewed its data using a method of testing that allowed them to drop the detection level to 0.005 micrograms per liter (5 parts per trillion). The lab, Eurofins Eaton Analytical, found that as many as 28 percent of the public drinking water systems it tested had PFAS levels above 0.005 micrograms per liter. None of those were in Arkansas, but the company tested fewer than 40 percent of samples taken during the monitoring period.
Assessments of safe levels of exposure range from 0.001 micrograms per liter to the EPA's health advisory levels of 0.070 micrograms per liter. Vermont established a health advisory level for perfluorooctanoic acid of 0.020 micrograms per liter, according to Eaton. Three states -- New York, New Hampshire and New Jersey -- recommend that labs set detection levels for perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid at 0.002, 0.005 and 0.010 micrograms per liter, respectively.
Under the monitoring, numerous utilities in Arkansas tested above detection levels for 10 of the 116 chemicals in the rule's third round: strontium, chromium-6, vanadium, chlorate, 1,4-dioxane, molybedenum, manganese, 4-androstene-3,17-dione, n-propylbenzene and chloromethane.
Of those, the EPA has issued a health advisory for manganese, setting a "health reference level" of 0.3 milligrams per liter. Arkansas utilities had voluminous samples that tested above detection level (0.001 milligrams per liter), but no samples that exceeded the health reference level. The highest sample was 0.17 milligrams per liter.
State Desk on 10/07/2018