Navigating a “Wicked Problem”
Welcome to ContamiNation, which explores the daunting challenges posed by ubiquitous pollutants like “forever chemicals” (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS) and microplastics. Subscribe for free to receive it monthly, and please share the link.
Environmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented. And prevention can only take place at the point of production.
— Barry Commoner, ecologist, in a New York Times interview in 2007
PFAS patter down in rain, blow in on ocean breezes, soak into soils, contaminate waterways and infiltrate our blood and organs. For more than 70 years, these indestructible chemicals have cycled through natural systems.
Contending with PFAS is the epitome of a “wicked problem,” a complex challenge that defies understanding, demands expertise in numerous disciplines, and eludes ready solutions. PFAS are especially daunting because they’re
Numerous, encompassing more than 14,000 compounds—fewer than 200 of which are undergoing federal toxicological research in the U.S.;
Diverse, making the health and ecological effects of different compounds hard to predict;
Persistent, with some having half-lives in humans of years; and
Expensive or impossible to remediate in the environment.
Experts in fields from chemistry and engineering to medicine and ecology are scrambling to establish a baseline understanding of these compounds. Entire disciplines—such as economics and mental health—have barely begun to examine PFAS impacts.
Meanwhile, chemical corporations continue manufacturing and distributing new variants of PFAS compounds. This “wicked problem” is more than a legacy of past ignorance; it’s amplifying and spreading every day, year after year.
This “wicked problem” is more than a legacy of past ignorance; it’s amplifying and spreading every day, year after year.
Fortunately, a growing number of people are starting to address this immense challenge. According to the nonprofit Safer States, 25 states have put forward 131 policy measures related to PFAS. Maine has mobilized an unusually nimble and collaborative response—with groundbreaking research into food safety, health effects and water filtration, and through passage of more than a dozen legislative measures (including a first-in-nation ban on land-spreading wastewater sludge and sludge-based compost, and a phased in ban on non-essential uses of PFAS in products).
Last week in Waterville, Maine, more than 100 people gathered to discuss PFAS in regional agriculture—joined by several representatives of Michigan State University, which recently hosted a similar symposium. Toxicologists, policymakers, researchers, medical professionals, farmers and tribal representatives shared in candid discussion of what’s been learned to date, the many questions that remain, and how best to move forward.
That gathering was a microcosm of the growing web of individuals and entities working to grasp what it means to live in a world marinated in PFAS. The breadth of toxicity we now face returns us to basic tenets of ecology that Barry Commoner, Rachel Carson and others tried to instill in American minds and consciences more than 50 years ago. We’re still far from an ecological worldview and from basing our systems of production on that. But communicating openly, collaborating, and sharing our findings are important steps along the way.
Research: A Promising New Tool to Pinpoint PFAS Concentrations
PFAS are ubiquitous in ecosystems but at concentrations that can vary wildly—depending on hydrogeology and proximity to current or historic contaminant sources (such as manufacturing plants, military sites, fire-training facilities, wastewater treatment plants, car washes, auto detailing facilities, and contaminated sludge or compost). Determining where PFAS may pose the highest health risks requires a compilation of diverse data.
Europe recently undertook a comprehensive look at PFAS sources through a partnership between the Forever Pollution Project and journalists in many countries. Now an even more ambitious mapping vision is being developed in this country, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) might eventually employ to locate potential PFAS hot spots. The new maps would synthesize far more data than EPA’s current PFAS Analytic Tools.
Called SAWGraph (for Safe Agricultural Products and Water Graph), this pilot effort is the brainchild of Torsten Hahmann, an associate professor of spatial computing at the University of Maine who recognized the potential for data-driven mapping to help pinpoint PFAS threats to drinking water and food supplies.
With a three-year, $1.5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Hahmann and colleagues at UMaine and three other universities will develop the tool for use by the EPA (and potentially other federal agencies and offices). The vision for the NSF grants, Hahmann explains, is to have researchers build tools of sufficient interest and utility that federal agencies will want to maintain them. Creating public-facing tools can be a slow process at that level, though, in his observation; “"Anything related to PFAS that could be interpreted as an official policy takes forever to get approval to publicize it."
Hahmann and his team are already developing a state-scale prototype funded by NASA through the Maine Space Grant Consortium. It will incorporate Maine’s data on wastewater treatment plant facilities, permits for land-applied sludge and septage, manufacturing sites, fire departments, and relevant federal data—such as the location of military facilities and hydrogeologic information from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Once refined and deployed, the Maine prototype could help researchers better understand how PFAS moves through watersheds and could identify patterns among the nearly 2,500 wells Maine has tested to date for PFAS.
Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) welcomed this mapping help, Hahmann said, since the agency only has one GIS analyst on staff. The DEP has openly shared PFAS maps and data on its website since 2020 so there is, in Hahmann’s words, “a very high expectation of transparency.”
NSF made this award as part of a new commitment to creating an “open knowledge network.” Data transparency and knowledge-sharing have helped Maine immeasurably in its relatively rapid and coordinated response to PFAS. More sophisticated federal mapping tools grounded in these principles could greatly advance our collective capacity to visualize the far reach of “forever chemicals.”
News of Note
The European Union has led efforts to develop chemical regulations that take a more precautionary approach, requiring safety testing by manufacturers before products can be sold. Environmental Health News reports that efforts to further strengthen the EU “REACH” program—which advocates say are essential to better protecting public health—now appear unlikely given corporate and political pressure. Multinational corporations often base practices on the strictest regulatory market so this setback could make it harder to set higher regulatory standards for chemicals in the U.S.
The Hill reports that EPA is finally closing a loophole created in 2020 covering 189 PFAS that must now be reported under the agency’s Toxic Release Inventory. It’s a small step toward regulatory oversight, given an estimated 4,700 PFAS compounds in active or historic commercial use.
ProPublica examines the time lag between EPA recognizing the threat posed by some unregulated contaminants and its moving to get them out of water systems. In the case of PFAS, it’s been a quarter-century. This month, the EPA released data indicating that more than a quarter of the public drinking water systems tested nationally had PFAS levels over the EPA’s minimum reporting levels, according to USA Today.
Inside Climate News reports that EPA is funding some research into how PFAS affects agriculture. The $8 million offered in grants over four years is—in one researcher’s words—a “drop in the bucket” compared to the need. By way of comparison, Maine just committed $10 million to agricultural PFAS research over the next five years.
A recent Department of Defense report on PFAS in groundwater, cited by The Guardian, takes brevity to a new art. Its update on investigations underway at 707 military facilities is less than half the length of its 13-page property list.
Microplastics are messing with the climate—and not just in the fossil fuels used to produce plastics. The Washington Post reports on research that found microplastics in the clouds over Mt. Fuji in Japan, where these atmospheric particulates could influence both cloud formation and climate.
Plastic production is projected to almost triple by 2060, a prospect that has environmental health scientists working to shape the debate at a UN Summit in Nairobi this month, where negotiations are underway on an international plastic pollution treaty. Twenty international scientists outlined goals for protecting public health, and a larger body of scientists are advocating that the treaty account for the damaging impacts of plastics across their life cycles.
A new study led by University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers found that rotifers, zooplankton that live in both fresh water and saltwater, transform microplastics into nanoplastics that are more easily spread and may be more dangerous. Plastics release chemicals as they are fragmented and the tiny particulates—small enough to enter organs—can act as carriers for other toxic chemicals like PFAS.
Good Resource
Accredited water testing for PFAS, the kind used by regulatory agencies, can be cost-prohibitive for many well owners, running upward of $400 per sample. A more affordable alternative exists, and citizen scientists in Maine did a split-sample analysis to compare its results to those of three accredited labs. The $79 test kit performed well, making it a useful screening tool. Read a report on the comparative study by Ed Friedman with the nonprofit Friends of Merrymeeting Bay.
Good Riddance
Eliminating harmful contaminants is a long-term, collective challenge, but there are steps we can take as individuals until more substantive policy measures are in place. Here’s one: Pass on the teabags that may be filling your drink with millions of microplastics and potentially some PFAS. Buy tea in bulk, store it in glass jars, and use a stainless-steel tea-infuser.
Thanks for reading!