Scientists say ‘forever chemicals’ may be contaminating 57,000 US sites

Tens of thousands of sites across the U.S. may be polluted with toxic so-called forever chemicals, a team of scientists argued in a study released on Wednesday.

The researchers said that in the absence of information proving otherwise, contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) should be presumed at 57,412 locations spread across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The areas in question include sites that discharge jet fuel firefighting foam, certain industrial facilities and places where waste contains these cancer-linked chemicals, according to the study, published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

“PFAS contamination at these locations is very likely,” senior author Alissa Cordner, co-director of the PFAS Project Lab at Northeastern University, said in a statement.

Known for their propensity to linger in the human body and in the environment, PFAS are linked to many illnesses, including testicular cancer, thyroid disease and kidney cancer.

These chemicals are notorious for their presence in aqueous film forming foam — the product used to fight jet fuel fires at military bases and airports. However, they are also found in industrial discharge and in a variety of household products.

Because testing for these substances is very sporadic, researchers have become aware of “many data gaps in identifying known sites of PFAS contamination,” according to Cordner, who is also an associate professor of sociology at Whitman College.

Cordner and her colleagues — who come from a variety of academic and government institutions — developed a “presumptive contamination” model that aggregates high-quality, publicly available data into a single, accessible map.

Their model, the authors explained, could be a critical tool to governments, industries and communities looking to identify potential exposure sources.

Among the 57,412 presumptive PFAS contamination sites, the authors identified 49,145 industrial facilities, 4,255 wastewater treatment plants, 3,493 current or former military sites and 519 major airports.

“While it sounds scary that there are over 57,000 presumptive contamination sites, this is almost certainly a large underestimation,” co-author Phil Brown, director of Northeastern University’s Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute, said in a statement.

“The scope of PFAS contamination is immense, and communities impacted by this contamination deserve swift regulatory action that stops ongoing and future uses of PFAS while cleaning up already existing contamination,” Brown added.

The authors said they validated 503 such sites using the PFAS Project Lab’s Contamination Site Tracker to evaluate how their model stands up to known contamination areas.

Of these sites, the authors found 72 percent either appeared directly on the presumptive contamination map or would have appeared there had sufficient nationwide data been available.

The 28 percent of sites not captured by the model included facilities that don’t tend to be associated with such contamination — such as restaurants and senior centers — as well as locations with relatively low levels of PFAS.

Other places within that 28 percent were businesses like car washes, sewage companies and textile cleaners, which are not identified by North American Industry Classification System, according to the study.

“PFAS testing is expensive and resource intensive,” co-author Kimberly Garrett, a post-doctoral researcher at Northeastern University, said in a statement.

“We have developed a standardized methodology that can help identify and prioritize locations for monitoring, regulation, and remediation,” Garrett added.

The presumptive contamination sites can be viewed on an interactive map published by the PFAS Project Lab.

“Not only do we all have PFAS in our bodies, but we also know that PFAS affects almost every organ system,” co-author Linda Birnbaum, the former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, said in a statement.

“It is essential that we understand where PFAS are in our communities so that we can prevent exposures,” Birnbaum added.