‘Forever Chemicals’ In Wisconsin Water: New Research Offers Hope

WISCONSIN — Scientists may have discovered a new way to break down “forever chemicals," a class of chemicals found in water systems across America and in parts of Wisconsin.

Forever chemicals have become associated with certain types of cancers, low birth weight and other serious health issues. In June, the Environmental Protection Agency sounded the alarm, notifying the public and water utilities that PFAS are more dangerous than previously thought.

While U.S. manufacturers have largely ended the use of PFAS and PFOS — they were once an attractive choice for packaging and other products because of their ability to repel stains, grease and water —a few uses remain. But since the 1940s, the chemicals have been able to accumulate and become ubiquitous in the environment.

In Wisconsin, there are seven main sites that have been confirmed contaminated with PFAS, or forever chemicals. Military installations are among the most frequent location where contamination is found, including Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport.

Other sites where contamination has been found, suspected to be from firefighting foam, included Hayward, Peshtigo, Fort McCoy, Volk Field at Camp Douglass, Badger Army Ammunition Plant in Sauk County and Traux Field in Madison, according to activists from Environmental Working Group.

RELATED: Evers Seeks Damages From 'Forever Chemical' Companies In New Lawsuit

The contamination found across Wisconsin has set off political action in the state. A lawsuit was filed in July by Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul against several companies that made products with "forever chemicals," including Tyco Fire Products, Chemguard, 3m, and DuPont.

Health advocates say the problem can’t be overstated. Forever chemicals have already prompted officials in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan to advisories against eating certain fish caught in Lake Superior.

The lawsuit sought to hold companies accountable for cleaning up the pollution that has popped up in Wisconsin. But, regardless of who wins the case, steps are being taken to address the contamination that's been found.

Northwestern University researchers said in a study published this month in Science that the forever chemicals were destroyed when boiled in a solution of water, sodium hydroxide (lye) and dimethyl sulfoxide (a chemical solvent approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat chronic bladder inflammation).

Chemicals started breaking down into harmless byproducts within hours. Within days, they were gone completely. The method isn’t perfect. Not all PFAS were destroyed but the research could lead to cheap approaches to remove the forever chemicals that put millions of Americans at risk for cancer and other diseases, Science reported.

RELATED: ‘Forever Chemicals’ More Dangerous Than Previously Thought, EPA Says

Tasha Stoiber, an environmental chemist at the Environmental Working Group, a U.S.-based nonprofit that closely tracks the issue, told Science the research is “encouraging and promising.”

Stoiber said current approaches are both expensive and ineffective. Filtering systems can help, but the residue can still end up in the landfill and leach into groundwater, and incineration at super-high temperatures above 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) consumes vast amounts of energy and cost millions of dollars, she said.

"The current way that people will try to dispose of firefighting foams that contain PFAS is to incinerate them, but there has been evidence that these incinerators are actually just blowing the PFAS around the community in which the incinerator is located,” Brittany Trang, an environmental chemist at Evanston, Illinois–based Northwestern University and one of the lead authors of the study, said in a conference call with reporters, NBC News reported.

“So there’s a need for a method to get rid of PFAS in a way that does not continue to pollute,” she said.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a degradation mechanism where I thought, ‘this could actually make a difference,’” Shira Joudan, an environmental chemist at York University in Toronto, Canada, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Nature News.

At least 3,000 PFAS-contaminated sites have been identified nationwide, and studies show them to be toxic even in minute quantities, according to Science. The National Institutes of Health estimates PFAS can be found in the bloodstreams of 97 percent of Americans.

“We’ve really polluted the whole world with this stuff,” Northwestern chemist William Dichtel, the co-author of the study, told The New York Times.

The research isn’t a “silver bullet” and will take some time to scale for widespread use, according to Chris Sales, an environmental engineer at Philadelphia’s Drexel University who wasn’t involved in the study, NBC reported.

“The big question is whether or not this process could be scaled up,” Sales said.

Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney for the EWG, told The Washington Post the EPA’s advisory earlier this summer “should set off alarm bells for consumers and regulators.”

“These proposed advisory levels demonstrate that we must move much faster to dramatically reduce exposures to these toxic chemicals,” Benesh said.

Even at levels so low they can’t be detected in drinking water, these compounds pose a health risk, the EPA said in the revised advisory. The agency lowered the allowable limits of these two compounds, immediately drawing fire from the chemical industry

The American Chemical Council, which represents PFAS producers such as 3M and Dupont, said Wednesday the EPA’s new standards “will have sweeping implications” on public policy, and “cannot be achieved with existing treatment technology and, in fact, are below levels that can be reliably detected using existing EPA methods.”

Further, the industry group questioned the science behind the revised drinking water health advisory, saying it should have been delayed until the agency’s own Science Advisory Board could review dramatically reduced toxicity levels that are “3,000 to 17,000 times lower” than those set in 2016.

“Getting the science right is of critical importance,” the American Chemical Council said in a statement.