Ran across this unsettling article the other day. The government has been running tests on the water supply nationally, and has found that 45% of the water that comes out of the tap in America is tainted with forever chemicals, which we have found our just absolutely terrible for human health.
This kind of contamination isn’t a fault of the water company, but instead is usually from industrial pollution, so it happens more often in urban areas. That said, it doesn’t matter where the chemicals come from now that they’re here – we are going to have to deal with the fallout. I don’t know if Sheep Creek Water Company is affected by this, though I wouldn’t be surprised considering where our water comes from…
I’ve quoted part of the article before, but the biggest concern for Sheep Creek customers and shareholders is the following sentence: “Researchers found the greatest exposures in the Great Plains, Great Lakes, Eastern Seaboard, and Central and Southern California, according to the study.” Hopefully that’s not us, and if it is, we’d better get this fixed.
https://www.axios.com/2023/07/07/forever-chemicals-tap-water-pfas-study
Study: “Forever chemicals” detected in nearly half of U.S. tap water
At least 45% of U.S. tap water is estimated to be contaminated with “forever chemicals,” according to new U.S. Geological Survey research.
Why it matters: Exposure to certain levels of these synthetic compounds, referred to collectively as PFAS, has been linked to adverse health effects in humans and animals, including an increased risk of cancer.“Millions of people have been drinking a toxic forever chemical linked to cancer all their lives and are only discovering it today,” Scott Faber, the senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, told the Washington Post Thursday.
What they did: The USGS study tested for the presence of 32 types of these extremely durable chemicals in water samples from more than 700 locations across the U.S. over a five-year period and used the data to estimate PFAS contamination nationwide.
“USGS scientists tested water collected directly from people’s kitchen sinks across the nation, providing the most comprehensive study to date on PFAS in tap water from both private wells and public supplies,” said USGS research hydrologist Kelly Smalling, the study’s lead author, in a statement accompanying the study on Wednesday.