dept toxic subst control DTSC
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</div><div>=</div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">Deichelbohrer has lived in her home roughly three miles from Wurtsmith Air Force Base near the shores of Lake Huron, Michigan, for about 20 years. Her husband passed away two years ago. Her daughter moved out eight years before that. And Deichelbohrer, now 65, lives in the roomy four-bedroom house alone with her five cats and a dog. </p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">Deichelbohrer's home now feels too big for her and her pets, and she would like to sell up and move to smaller surrounds. However, tests conducted on her private drinking water well showed that it has been contaminated with toxic Per- and Polyfluorinated Alkyl Substances (PFAS). These human-made chemicals are used ubiquitously in industry, including the manufacturing of nonstick cookware, textiles, paper and paints, as well as firefighting foams used for decades at military bases like Wurtsmith.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">The tests on Deichelbohrer's well showed levels of PFAS contamination below a federal advisory around which there's much discrepancy between experts, some of whom say the threshold isn't nearly protective enough of people's health. Authorities have issued Deichelbohrer a filter for her kitchen tap water, but the water piped to the rest of her house is untreated, she said. And she's concerned that, unless her home is permanently connected with the cleaner municipal drinking water supply -- a costly procedure -- it will be difficult to sell.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">What's more, Deichelbohrer, who said she suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, wonders whether the contaminated water has affected her health, or that of her family. "I really don't know ... 20 years I've been drinking that water," she said, before pointing out one of the grim ironies of living in one of the wettest places in the nation. "I've got lots of water around me; I just can't drink any of it."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">But Deichelbohrer's story is just the tip of the iceberg. PFAS contamination is not only a problem at Wurtsmith -- a <a href="https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0503675" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration-line: none;">superfund site</a> around which more than half of the private wells tested contain PFAS to some degree, and where the extent of the pollution has yet to be fully delineated -- but nationally and internationally, where the environmental toll of PFAS contamination is only starting to be realized. This, despite the fact that some of the potential harmful health problems from human exposure to these chemicals have been known for decades, said attorney Robert Bilott, whose lawsuit against DuPont in the early 2000s was integral to lifting the lid on the issue.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">"The first letter I recall sending out is a letter alerting the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and state regulatory agencies to the problem on March 6, 2001," Bilott said. "We're sitting here almost 17 years later, and it's still not properly regulated by the federal government, which is really rather remarkable."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">The human <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking-water-health-advisories-pfoa-and-pfos" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration-line: none;">health impacts</a> associated with over-exposure to PFAS include cancer, developmental effects on fetuses during pregnancy and on breastfed infants, as well as liver, immune and thyroid problems. What's more, Bilott believes there is no safe exposure threshold.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">"The concept that there is a safe level of any amount of these types of chemicals in the water is just not workable," he said. "It just doesn't fit into the current way people are trying to regulate and set limits for these chemicals."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong>Decades of Dangerous Exposure</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">Wurtsmith was decommissioned in 1993, and a cleanup of the former base has been ongoing ever since. PFASs were detected in "<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12729279" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration-line: none;">measurable quantities</a>" in 2003, but it was only in recent years that authorities have actively responded to the threat of these contaminants. Levels of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS -- a member of the PFAS family) have been found in the groundwater at quantities of over 600,000 parts per trillion (ppt). To put that in perspective, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-06/documents/drinkingwaterhealthadvisories_pfoa_pfos_updated_5.31.16.pdf" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration-line: none;">EPA established</a> a recommended though nonbinding drinking water threshold of 70 ppt for two of the more commonly found PFASs: perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and PFOS.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">While only two of the 273 private drinking-water wells tested so far around Wurtsmith contained PFOA and PFOS above the EPA's advisory (one well containing levels as high as 3,396 ppt), more than half -- like Deichelbohrer's -- contain lower levels of these chemicals, and numerous experts believe that the federal threshold is far too lenient. The results of a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1048291115590506" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration-line: none;">2012 study</a>, for example, led researchers to suggest a PFAS drinking water threshold of no higher than 1 ppt.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><a href="https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdhhs/PFCs_in_Drinking_Water_Wells_532618_7.pdf" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration-line: none;">Authorities also admit</a> they don't know if the PFASs in the drinking-water wells will remain at low levels, or how long PFASs have been there. As a precaution, those affected have been told not to use their well water for drinking, cooking, making baby formula or food, or washing fruits and vegetables.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">Fears of PFAS exposure at Wurtsmith stretch beyond those living in close proximity to the base, and extend to former servicemembers based there in the past -- some of whom remember the liberal way in which the PFAS-laced firefighting foam was used and disposed of.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">...</p></div><div>===</div>