{"id":209287,"date":"2025-01-07T00:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T00:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/07\/forever-chemicals-reach-tap-water-via-treated-sewage-study-finds\/"},"modified":"2025-01-07T00:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T00:47:08","slug":"forever-chemicals-reach-tap-water-via-treated-sewage-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/07\/forever-chemicals-reach-tap-water-via-treated-sewage-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Forever Chemicals\u2019 Reach Tap Water via Treated Sewage, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/06\/science\/06CLI-PFAS\/06CLI-PFAS-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\u2018Forever Chemicals\u2019 Reach Tap Water via Treated Sewage, Study Finds\" title=\"\u2018Forever Chemicals\u2019 Reach Tap Water via Treated Sewage, Study Finds\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As the world grapples with climate change, population growth and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2023\/08\/28\/climate\/groundwater-drying-climate-change.html\" title=\"\">dwindling supplies of fresh water<\/a>, more people are set to rely on treated wastewater to sustain their daily lives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But wastewater, even after treatment, contains high levels of harmful \u201cforever chemicals\u201d that are already contaminating the drinking water of millions of Americans, researchers said in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/full\/10.1073\/pnas.2417156122\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">study published on Monday<\/a> that analyzed wastewater samples nationwide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The study, led by researchers at Harvard and New York University, found elevated levels of six types of chemicals known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in the samples. The chemicals, which have been <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/etc.4890\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">linked to cancer and other diseases<\/a>, are known as forever chemicals because they don\u2019t break down in the environment. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency started to regulate PFAS in drinking water.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The researchers found that the samples contained an even greater quantity of organofluorines, a wider group of chemicals that includes PFAS and is used in pharmaceuticals, refrigerants, and nonstick coatings. The majority of those chemicals are unregulated and the health consequences of exposure to many of them are still unknown.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhat are all of these other compounds? Are they other PFAS that we\u2019re not measuring, that the industry has shifted toward?\u201d said Bridger Ruyle, assistant professor of environmental engineering at New York University, who led the research. \u201cWhat does that mean for exposure?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that wastewater treatment facilities do not effectively remove these compounds from wastewater. At most sites, in fact, PFAS in wastewater became more concentrated after treatment, the researchers found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The contamination is of particular concern, the researchers said, given that water scarcity across many regions of the United States means wastewater is being reused or is being released into rivers and lakes. And if that wastewater isn\u2019t diluted enough before re-entering the drinking water supply, a concern that is growing as water flows dwindle because of overuse and climate change, \u201cyou have a contamination issue,\u201d Professor Ruyle said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">About 50 percent of the country\u2019s drinking water supplies are downstream of one or more wastewater sites, he added. The study used modeling to show that PFAS from wastewater was already contaminating the drinking water of up to 23 million people in the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The results \u201cemphasize the importance of further curbing ongoing PFAS sources,\u201d the researchers concluded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The new study highlights how widespread contamination is complicating efforts to reuse wastewater, which includes sewage from households as well as polluted water from businesses and factories. The sludge that is left over after wastewater treatment is also used to fertilize farmland across the country, and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/08\/31\/climate\/pfas-fertilizer-sludge-farm.html\" title=\"\">PFAS contamination of that sludge<\/a> is also raising concerns over the practice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/06\/climate\/forever-chemicals-pfas-sewage-drinking-water.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the world grapples with climate change, population growth and dwindling supplies of fresh water, more people are set to rely on treated wastewater to sustain their daily lives. But wastewater, even after treatment, contains high levels of harmful \u201cforever chemicals\u201d that are already contaminating the drinking water of millions of Americans, researchers said in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/06\/science\/06CLI-PFAS\/06CLI-PFAS-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[130,4652,165183,2302,23784,17434,165179,165180,3479,165184,4591,165181,164110,5623,6973,165182,250,555,7882,1021,556,125904],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209289,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209287\/revisions\/209289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}