[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: "PFAS contamination is Michigan's biggest environmental crisis in 40 years"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

PFAS contamination is Michigan's biggest environmental crisis in 40 years
These once-common chemicals are linked to cancer and a host of other ailments. And they may be tainting more than 11,000 sites around Michigan.

by Keith Matheny
Detroit Free Press (MI)
April 26, 2019

Sandy Wynn-Stelt knows it's too late for herself. The chemicals she drank for perhaps 25 years out of her tap - the ones that now poison her blood at levels 750 times the average American's - will remain inside her body.

They may naturally work their way out over years, toxicologists say. But no one can tell Wynn-Stelt definitively what her prolonged exposure to massive levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances - PFAS, the emerging contaminant causing a rising crisis across Michigan and the country - will mean for her future health.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's health advisory level in drinking water for two of the most common PFAS compounds, known as PFOS and PFOA, is 70 parts per trillion. The levels in Wynn-Stelt's drinking water tested as high as 76,000 parts per trillion.

Michigan may have more than 11,000 sites contaminated with these once-common chemicals, now linked to cancer and a host of other ailments. Regulators have identified 46 sites statewide with levels above the EPA's health limit in groundwater.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.freep.com/in-depth/news/local/michigan/2019/04/25/pfas-contamination-michigan-crisis/3365301002/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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