6 ms·

How a California county got PFAS out of its drinking water

76 points by adomasm3 2y ago

toomuchtodo 2y ago
The cost of this remediation nationwide is going to be brutal. https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/ > By the EPA’s standards, Anaheim’s remaining wells are now considered contaminated. Lyster says the city will expand its PFAS treatment capacity to comply with the federal rule by 2029. All told, building PFAS filtration for all 19 of Anaheim’s wells is projected to cost $200 million. > Anaheim and Yorba Linda are part of the Orange County Water District — a public agency that manages the region’s groundwater and which helped to design, fund and build the PFAS filtration plants. Across Orange County, more than 100 wells have exceeded the EPA’s new standards. Fixing the problem in the county is expected to cost $1.8 billion dollars over 30 years, according to OCWD.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > cost of this remediation nationwide is going to be brutal "$1.8 billion dollars over 30 years" in a county of 3mm [1] is about $20 per person per year. Scaled nationally, that implies a cost of about $6bn a year, which sounds amply doable. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-counties/california/orange-county https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-counties/california/ora...
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Other resources seem to agree with me with regards to unaffordability at this scale. Maybe we’re just arguing the scale of “a few tens of billions here and there.” > PFAS can be bought for $50 - $1,000 per pound (according to MPCA estimates), but costs between $2.7 million and $18 million per pound to remove and destroy from municipal wastewater, depending on facility size. https://www.pca.state.mn.us/news-and-stories/groundbreaking-study-shows-unaffordable-costs-of-pfas-cleanup-from-wastewater https://www.pca.state.mn.us/news-and-stories/groundbreaking-... > A new report by Milliman estimates that PFAS remediation costs for U.S. water districts could reach as high as $175 billion, helping companies and insurers quantify the potential exposure. Report: https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/pfas-liability-estimate-water-district-remediation https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/pfas-liability-estimate-... https://riskandinsurance.com/costs-to-remediate-pfas-water-contamination-could-hit-175b/ https://riskandinsurance.com/costs-to-remediate-pfas-water-c...
    - maxerickson 2y ago
      A few tens of billions really isn't a big deal... It's kind of funny that you are like an enthusonaut when it comes to businesses and other private entities doing things and then can't imagine that pretty much the only thing government needs to do whatever is the political will.
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        I can be optimistic about things that don’t matter, but pessimistic when it comes to basic human needs and the historical pattern of people being poisoned by companies without recourse or government not holding polluters accountable. Will it get cleaned up eventually? Maybe. Will it be expensive? Absolutely. Will people be harmed and die in the meantime from PFAS contaminated water. Also true. The Inflation Reduction Act demonstrates your point about political will, but it still requires will, and once done, the policy and fiat takes time to have outcomes come out of the machine. Nuance!
        maxerickson 2y ago
        Pfas levels in the US are far below where they were in 2000. We are making solid progress.
        toomuchtodo 2y ago
        I would not disagree we are making progress, but people will still be harmed and die from drinking water PFAS until remediated. Do we agree on that point? > EPA Administrator Michael Regan last month made one of his agency's strongest statements to date about the danger of "forever chemicals." New restrictions on those pollutants in drinking water would "prevent thousands of deaths and prevent tens of thousands of serious PFAS-related illnesses," Regan said. https://www.epa.gov/pfas/key-epa-actions-address-pfas https://www.epa.gov/pfas/key-epa-actions-address-pfas https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/tap-water-study-detects-pfas-forever-chemicals-across-us https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/tap-water-st... https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-024-01074-2 https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-... https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP10393 https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP10393
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Are you talking federal intervention? Because half our governing system (you can guess which) just thinks that water suppliers shouldn't be saddled with the responsibility of ensuring water is clean. But yeah maybe municipalities can pull it together piece by piece. Not that that'd help all the other countless sources of PFAS and similar, though.
    - Der_Einzige 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - trescenzi 2y ago
        I use a brita water bottle for places with gross water. Actually use it in Orlando regularly. It usually takes most of the swamp taste out but even it cannot fix the horrid water at Cosmic Ray’s.
      - 124816 2y ago
        You're comparing water taken from the Floridian aquifer (lots of minerals like sulphur, which isn't known for tasting great) with Seattle (water from the mountains), SF (hetch hetchy), etc. I just want to suggest that maybe the taste of water is one of the things that cannot be naively mapped to a linearized space of red vs blue.
- mrweiner 2y ago
  I wonder if the costs associated with this will go down over time. Either way, your first link says 7500 sites are affected, so that’s something like $135 billion if we go off of the Orange County cost? Sheesh. Or is that multiplication not how it works?
- nielsbot 2y ago
  I hope PFA manufacturers will have to help pay for this. Especially if they know about the dangers. Makes no sense for them to keep all the profits while the state pays for the remediation.
electricdreams 2y ago
What about fluoridation? They still putting rat poison in the water?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > What about fluoridation? They still putting rat poison in the water? Fluoride naturally occurs in groundwater at levels in excess of not only what we add to water but to levels we consider unsafe [1]. Humans have been consuming water with some level of fluoride in it for thousands of years; animals, millions. PFAS, meanwhile, are entirely anthropogenic. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572649/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572649/
  - tmn 2y ago
    This type of moving goal post rationalization always occurs on this topic. I can agree with you. And I don’t think added fluoride in my water is going to have any obvious health effect on me. But your points don’t justify why it’s still being added. What they do is rationalize why it’s not going to have any obvious health effects
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      I’m arguing less for or against fluoride in drinking water than pointing out it’s irrelevant whataboutism (literally) in a discussion about PFAS.
  - TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
    The key issue with water fluoridation is that you can't control the dose. There's not really a strong consensus among countries whether it's optimal to add fluoride to drinking water, otherwise it would probably be the default choice everywhere. But we have better modern interventions that are just as effective: school-based dental care!
  - Ferret7446 2y ago
    That's a poor argument. There are many things that can occur naturally in groundwater that you don't want to be drinking.
Neywiny 2y ago
I highly recommend Dark Waters (it's on Netflix in the US as of a few days ago). It covers a lot of PFAS history and politics in the US. It also finally convinced someone I know to stop thinking it's fine to eat teflon flakes and stop scratching up the nonstick.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  Very good movie, just watched the other day. Michael Clayton is good too, though fictional.
- hedora 2y ago
  I know it’s a cliche as this point, but just go get a cast iron skillet and a set of stainless steel pots (with metal handles). The maintenance is easier than teflon because you can scrape stuff off it, and use metal implements while cooking. Make sure you use the skillet on a regular basis, and you shouldn’t need to reseason it more than once every 5+ years. Reseasoning consists of scraping all the crap off with a metal implement, wiping some canola oil on it, and baking at 350F for an hour or so. Edit: Make sure the stainless is induction compatible, since it’ll last longer than your current kitchen. Also, if money is no object, get a nice enameled cast iron dutch oven.
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    Also if you treat stainless gently , like Teflon , it can be fairly non-stick. The slicker the surface, the less sticks to it, as long as you season properly before cooking. I use to get rough with my stainless pans but it made them more “sticky”. You can polish them in pretty easily back into a good state, which can’t really be done with teflon…
  - magicalhippo 2y ago
    I got both a carbon steel skillet and a stainless steel skillet. The latter is especially nice for sauces. Haven't reached for my old Teflon pan in ages.
reducesuffering 2y ago
Reminder to in home reverse osmosis. Ensure integrity right before consumption.
- ars 2y ago
  Carbon filter is a lot cheaper/easier and works just fine for this.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    There area lot of potential things in your water to worry about. Ro gets a lot more out than carbon filters. At a previous house I had lab results to show my well water needed that. most of you have safe water
  - reducesuffering 2y ago
    There's a comparison on EWG.org that lists compounds Reverse Osmosis removes that carbon filter doesn't: Hexavalent Chromium (Erin Brockovich carcinogen, no legal limit, found in my water supply) Nitrates and nitrites (a top carcinogen of processed red meats)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
magicalhippo 2y ago
Was just in the news here in Norway that a local study[1] of 300 boys found a overall positive correlation between the total amount of the majority of PFAS species and delayed onset of puberty. Overall the effect was around a 1 year delay between those that had were in the lowest PFAS group and those that were in the highest PFAS group. Though if I interpreted it correctly, certain specific PFAS species had a negative correlation, so it could swing both ways depending on the mix of PFAS species one accumulated. [1]: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c06062 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c06062

76 points by adomasm3 2y ago

The cost of this remediation nationwide is going to be brutal. https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/ > By the EPA’s standards, Anaheim’s remaining wells are now considered contaminated. Lyster says the city will expand its PFAS treatment capacity to comply with the federal rule by 2029. All told, building PFAS filtration for all 19 of Anaheim’s wells is projected to cost $200 million. > Anaheim and Yorba Linda are part of the Orange County Water District — a public agency that manages the region’s groundwater and which helped to design, fund and build the PFAS filtration plants. Across Orange County, more than 100 wells have exceeded the EPA’s new standards. Fixing the problem in the county is expected to cost $1.8 billion dollars over 30 years, according to OCWD.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> cost of this remediation nationwide is going to be brutal "$1.8 billion dollars over 30 years" in a county of 3mm [1] is about $20 per person per year. Scaled nationally, that implies a cost of about $6bn a year, which sounds amply doable. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-counties/california/orange-county https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-counties/california/ora...
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Other resources seem to agree with me with regards to unaffordability at this scale. Maybe we’re just arguing the scale of “a few tens of billions here and there.” > PFAS can be bought for $50 - $1,000 per pound (according to MPCA estimates), but costs between $2.7 million and $18 million per pound to remove and destroy from municipal wastewater, depending on facility size. https://www.pca.state.mn.us/news-and-stories/groundbreaking-study-shows-unaffordable-costs-of-pfas-cleanup-from-wastewater https://www.pca.state.mn.us/news-and-stories/groundbreaking-... > A new report by Milliman estimates that PFAS remediation costs for U.S. water districts could reach as high as $175 billion, helping companies and insurers quantify the potential exposure. Report: https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/pfas-liability-estimate-water-district-remediation https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/pfas-liability-estimate-... https://riskandinsurance.com/costs-to-remediate-pfas-water-contamination-could-hit-175b/ https://riskandinsurance.com/costs-to-remediate-pfas-water-c...
  - maxerickson 2y ago
    A few tens of billions really isn't a big deal... It's kind of funny that you are like an enthusonaut when it comes to businesses and other private entities doing things and then can't imagine that pretty much the only thing government needs to do whatever is the political will.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      I can be optimistic about things that don’t matter, but pessimistic when it comes to basic human needs and the historical pattern of people being poisoned by companies without recourse or government not holding polluters accountable. Will it get cleaned up eventually? Maybe. Will it be expensive? Absolutely. Will people be harmed and die in the meantime from PFAS contaminated water. Also true. The Inflation Reduction Act demonstrates your point about political will, but it still requires will, and once done, the policy and fiat takes time to have outcomes come out of the machine. Nuance!
      - maxerickson 2y ago
        Pfas levels in the US are far below where they were in 2000. We are making solid progress.
        toomuchtodo 2y ago
        I would not disagree we are making progress, but people will still be harmed and die from drinking water PFAS until remediated. Do we agree on that point? > EPA Administrator Michael Regan last month made one of his agency's strongest statements to date about the danger of "forever chemicals." New restrictions on those pollutants in drinking water would "prevent thousands of deaths and prevent tens of thousands of serious PFAS-related illnesses," Regan said. https://www.epa.gov/pfas/key-epa-actions-address-pfas https://www.epa.gov/pfas/key-epa-actions-address-pfas https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/tap-water-study-detects-pfas-forever-chemicals-across-us https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/tap-water-st... https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-024-01074-2 https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-... https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP10393 https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP10393
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Are you talking federal intervention? Because half our governing system (you can guess which) just thinks that water suppliers shouldn't be saddled with the responsibility of ensuring water is clean. But yeah maybe municipalities can pull it together piece by piece. Not that that'd help all the other countless sources of PFAS and similar, though.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - trescenzi 2y ago
      I use a brita water bottle for places with gross water. Actually use it in Orlando regularly. It usually takes most of the swamp taste out but even it cannot fix the horrid water at Cosmic Ray’s.
    - 124816 2y ago
      You're comparing water taken from the Floridian aquifer (lots of minerals like sulphur, which isn't known for tasting great) with Seattle (water from the mountains), SF (hetch hetchy), etc. I just want to suggest that maybe the taste of water is one of the things that cannot be naively mapped to a linearized space of red vs blue.
mrweiner 2y ago
I wonder if the costs associated with this will go down over time. Either way, your first link says 7500 sites are affected, so that’s something like $135 billion if we go off of the Orange County cost? Sheesh. Or is that multiplication not how it works?
nielsbot 2y ago
I hope PFA manufacturers will have to help pay for this. Especially if they know about the dangers. Makes no sense for them to keep all the profits while the state pays for the remediation.

electricdreams 2y ago

What about fluoridation? They still putting rat poison in the water?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> What about fluoridation? They still putting rat poison in the water? Fluoride naturally occurs in groundwater at levels in excess of not only what we add to water but to levels we consider unsafe [1]. Humans have been consuming water with some level of fluoride in it for thousands of years; animals, millions. PFAS, meanwhile, are entirely anthropogenic. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572649/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572649/
- tmn 2y ago
  This type of moving goal post rationalization always occurs on this topic. I can agree with you. And I don’t think added fluoride in my water is going to have any obvious health effect on me. But your points don’t justify why it’s still being added. What they do is rationalize why it’s not going to have any obvious health effects
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    I’m arguing less for or against fluoride in drinking water than pointing out it’s irrelevant whataboutism (literally) in a discussion about PFAS.
- TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
  The key issue with water fluoridation is that you can't control the dose. There's not really a strong consensus among countries whether it's optimal to add fluoride to drinking water, otherwise it would probably be the default choice everywhere. But we have better modern interventions that are just as effective: school-based dental care!
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  That's a poor argument. There are many things that can occur naturally in groundwater that you don't want to be drinking.

Neywiny 2y ago

I highly recommend Dark Waters (it's on Netflix in the US as of a few days ago). It covers a lot of PFAS history and politics in the US. It also finally convinced someone I know to stop thinking it's fine to eat teflon flakes and stop scratching up the nonstick.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Very good movie, just watched the other day. Michael Clayton is good too, though fictional.
hedora 2y ago
I know it’s a cliche as this point, but just go get a cast iron skillet and a set of stainless steel pots (with metal handles). The maintenance is easier than teflon because you can scrape stuff off it, and use metal implements while cooking. Make sure you use the skillet on a regular basis, and you shouldn’t need to reseason it more than once every 5+ years. Reseasoning consists of scraping all the crap off with a metal implement, wiping some canola oil on it, and baking at 350F for an hour or so. Edit: Make sure the stainless is induction compatible, since it’ll last longer than your current kitchen. Also, if money is no object, get a nice enameled cast iron dutch oven.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  Also if you treat stainless gently , like Teflon , it can be fairly non-stick. The slicker the surface, the less sticks to it, as long as you season properly before cooking. I use to get rough with my stainless pans but it made them more “sticky”. You can polish them in pretty easily back into a good state, which can’t really be done with teflon…
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  I got both a carbon steel skillet and a stainless steel skillet. The latter is especially nice for sauces. Haven't reached for my old Teflon pan in ages.

reducesuffering 2y ago

Reminder to in home reverse osmosis. Ensure integrity right before consumption.

ars 2y ago
Carbon filter is a lot cheaper/easier and works just fine for this.
- bluGill 2y ago
  There area lot of potential things in your water to worry about. Ro gets a lot more out than carbon filters. At a previous house I had lab results to show my well water needed that. most of you have safe water
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  There's a comparison on EWG.org that lists compounds Reverse Osmosis removes that carbon filter doesn't: Hexavalent Chromium (Erin Brockovich carcinogen, no legal limit, found in my water supply) Nitrates and nitrites (a top carcinogen of processed red meats)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

magicalhippo 2y ago

Was just in the news here in Norway that a local study[1] of 300 boys found a overall positive correlation between the total amount of the majority of PFAS species and delayed onset of puberty. Overall the effect was around a 1 year delay between those that had were in the lowest PFAS group and those that were in the highest PFAS group. Though if I interpreted it correctly, certain specific PFAS species had a negative correlation, so it could swing both ways depending on the mix of PFAS species one accumulated. [1]: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c06062 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c06062