See if your drinking water has ‘forever chemicals’

Many Americans remember April 8 this year for the once-in-a-lifetime eclipse that swept across the country, but for Tony Spaniola, the true “generational milestone” came two days later.
On April 10, Spaniola stood among a handful of fellow activists in an ornate White House office, jubilantly glued to a television screen showing officials from the Environmental Protection Agency announcing the first-ever limits on so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
“It was truly like an out-of-body experience, like I cannot believe,” the clean-water advocate remembered thinking.
“A few years ago, I couldn’t get anybody to talk to me. But now, here I am in the White House watching this. It’s really happening,” said Spaniola, a 66-year-old attorney from suburban Detroit.
Dozens of citizen action groups have sprouted up near military bases, chemical plants and other sites where PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been released into the environment. These toxic, human-made chemicals don’t break down easily in nature or in human bodies, with some linked to increased risks for cancer and other serious health problems.
This map shows water systems included in the EPA’s PFAS testing records, as of Oct. 28, 2024. It’s based on boundaries developed by SimpleLab, a water-testing company. Points represent systems where the exact boundaries are not available. Enter an address to locate the nearest water systems. Then click on a system to review its PFAS measurements. Don’t see a map? Click here.
The EPA’s announcement of limits this spring marked a turning point for many of these PFAS activists, Spaniola said.
But some, including Spaniola, now worry about potential rollbacks in PFAS monitoring and regulation under President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, citing a lack of urgency and the suppression of a PFAS health study during Trump’s first term.  
Spaniola also pointed to the Project 2025 agenda, which proposes revising groundwater cleanup regulations and revisiting the designation of PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances. 
Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025’s conservative policy proposals written by people close to him, including alumni from his first administration. 
“We’re concerned that maybe it’s going to be different and potentially a rollback of what we’ve seen,” Spaniola said, noting that he welcomes dialogue with the incoming administration. During Trump’s first term, however, “there was not a sense of urgency, and not a sense of openness to dealing with us that we’ve seen under the Biden administration.” 
That rollback could mean backtracking on a decade of progress made by these grassroots groups, as they demanded accountability for polluters and solutions for contaminated water across the country.   
Now, newly released EPA data show almost 500 cities may soon need to act to comply with the new PFAS drinking water limits, underscoring that need for urgency among activists. 
This data presents the most extensive monitoring effort of PFAS contamination in drinking water ever undertaken by the EPA. For nearly two years, it has required public drinking water systems to collect measurements of 29 types of forever chemicals. 
“Now we have some more really powerful data that we can point to,” Spaniola said of the recently updated EPA records. “It’s certainly something that we can add to our quiver in this fight, but it’s still in the process of germinating.”  
A USA TODAY analysis of the newest batch of EPA records found 498 drinking water systems had PFAS contamination above the new limits. This means they likely need to install costly filters to remove PFAS or find new sources of drinking water by 2029, when the EPA plans to begin enforcing its new limits.  
More than 1,100 additional water systems have detected PFAS at least once in the past two years, but at levels that didn’t exceed the new limits on average. Plus, the records show about 750 more systems have detected other, less studied types of PFAS that currently have no restrictions.  
More cities will likely be added to those counts as the EPA continues to collect sample results over the next year. The federal agency has estimated thousands of water systems may eventually need to take action to prevent deaths and serious illnesses among about 100 million Americans who rely on these public utilities for clean water. 
For Spaniola, the battle against forever chemicals began in 2016. After a yearslong investigation of PFAS releases at the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base, the local health department warned Spaniola’s family not to drink the water at their lake house in Oscoda, Michigan. 
He joined other concerned neighbors to found Need Our Water, a local community action group whose Facebook page now boasts nearly 1,000 members.  
But he didn’t stop with Oscoda. Spaniola currently sits on the leadership team of the National PFAS Contamination Coalition, a grassroots network of about 50 citizen groups like the one he founded in Michigan.  
“As communities are beginning to learn about the problem, to understand what’s happening to them, it’s become almost a movement,” Spaniola said. “The number of people who see this, who become outraged and concerned and realize that this is a long-term fight that they’ve got to engage in, really has begun to grow.”
The coalition’s members stretch across the country from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  
A decade ago in the coastal New England town of Portsmouth, Andrea Amico, an occupational therapist and mother of three, was dismayed to learn about PFAS contamination at the former Pease Air Force Base. It had been converted to an industrial park where her husband worked and her children attended day care.  
“It kind of lit a fire inside of me,” Amico said, so she and two other mothers co-founded Testing for Pease to demand blood testing for the community.  
“At critical windows of their development, they were exposed to very contaminated water,” she said. “It brought a lot of anxiety and fear and guilt and anger for me.” 
Research from the EPA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have linked PFAS with developmental delays or behavioral changes in children and reduced effectiveness of vaccines. Studies also show forever chemicals can transfer to children through the placenta or breastfeeding. 
“It’s made me realize that it’s not just my family or my community,” Amico said. “It’s like hundreds and thousands of communities now across the country, who are moms like me, and families like me, who have the same worries and concerns.” 
Another group that’s worried is Generation Z, which includes teenagers through people in their late-20s. Polling from the Pew Research Center shows Gen Zers believe addressing climate change and environmental problems is more pressing than older generations do.  
In the Cincinnati suburb of Indian Hill, high school students Jack and Graham Kruse founded and registered their own nonprofit to draw attention to PFAS contamination they discovered pouring from their kitchen tap and school drinking fountain in 2023.
“They were both way high,” said 15-year-old Graham Kruse, noting that the lab report on the water samples they took last year revealed PFAS concentrations three times above the new limits. 
Along with a couple other high school students, the Kruse brothers researched potential sources of the PFAS contamination within their local aquifer. The teenagers toured nearby water treatment plants and then presented their findings to the Village Council in June to encourage them to protect the 15,000 people who rely on Indian Hill’s water. 
“Our bottom line was to have a solution as quick as possible,” Graham Kruse said. “Every week we have avoided updating the (municipal) water filtration system, we’re drinking unclean water with PFAS in it and degrading people’s health.” 
Following the Kruse brothers’ presentation, council members unanimously voted to explore installing an advanced filtration system that can reduce PFAS measurements below the new EPA limits.  
Indian Hill Water Works Superintendent Ron Freson said they’ve contracted an engineering firm to study treatment options, and the initial proposed cost works out to $23 million. Most customers would pay an additional $5 per month to help fund the upgrade; Freson said they’ll have better cost estimates after the study. 
Final costs would also depend on whether Indian Hill wins any grant money from the Ohio EPA or gets a settlement from class-action lawsuits against PFAS manufacturers, Freson said.
Last summer, manufacturing giants 3M and Dupont agreed to pay billions of dollars to public water suppliers to settle PFAS contamination lawsuits filed against them, and chemical maker BASF settled for over $300 million earlier this year. 
3M was scheduled to begin sending its payments out this fall, but the company has 13 years to complete them. Freson said that means it’s tough to predict when the money will come through. 
“Five years sounds like a long time,” Freson added, referencing how long they have to comply with the EPA limits. “It’s still a very, very short window to design, build and get into operation something that many other systems across the nation will be trying to do in the same very short time frame.” 
Security-Widefield, Colorado, a community of nearly 40,000 people just south of the Peterson Space Force Base near Colorado Springs, has already installed filters. It was part of a 2022 report from the CDC evaluating PFAS in drinking water.  
The report found residents’ average blood levels of two types of forever chemicals, PFHxS and PFOA, were higher than national levels – potentially associated with drinking water contamination. 
A key factor in predicting blood levels for PFHxS and PFOA was the length of time the resident had lived in Security-Widefield over the past 20 years, the report found. 
The Widefield Water and Sanitation District, which serves about 23,000 people and was included in the study, recently reported three different PFAS compounds over the limits, USA TODAY’s analysis showed. 
Lucas Hale, the district’s manager, said in an email to USA TODAY that the test results are from wells that have been turned off.  
“We were able to use other water sources,” Hale said. Before that, Hale added, they were treating the PFAS-contaminated water by blending it with surface water to reduce levels below the EPA limits.
The district now uses ion exchange technology to remove PFAS from water, an approach that uses tiny beads to filter out the chemicals.
Liz Rosenbaum, a co-founder of the nearby Fountain Valley Clean Water Coalition who recently ran for the Colorado House of Representatives, said that the water districts are not at fault and a “tremendous burden” has been placed on them. 
Instead, she said, the focus should be on forcing chemical manufacturers to take responsibility. 
Through the years, Rosenbaum has engaged with state officials and traveled to Washington, D.C., to talk with federal officials. Her campaign website says she helped get seven PFAS-related state laws passed by presenting evidence and bringing community members to testify at committee hearings. 
“The thing that is missing is anyone being held accountable for poisoning us,” Rosenbaum said.  
“We need litigation and legislation.”  
Thousands of lawsuits are currently working their way through the court system, filed by cities, utilities and private individuals against manufacturers of forever chemicals and their major consumers, including the U.S. military.  
However, the PFAS limits have their own legal challenges. 
Last month, two national associations of water utilities filed the opening brief in a lawsuit against the EPA, alleging the agency didn’t follow the protocols for establishing new limits under the Safe Drinking Water Act. 
“(We) are committed to sound, science-based drinking water regulations that protect public health in a cost-effective manner,” the trade groups wrote in a press release. “It is essential that EPA get it right, following the clear Safe Drinking Water Act process set forth by Congress.”
Spaniola said knowing that paying his water utility bill in Detroit helps fund the trade groups behind that lawsuit “really frosts me,” but he won’t let that stop him.
Members of the “Forever Club,” as Spaniola and fellow PFAS activists have dubbed themselves, vary across the political spectrum, and he said they welcome any dialogue with the new Trump administration.  
“We have had to deal with so much for so long that certainly any potential setbacks or obstacles are concerning, but we’re not going to let those stop us from continuing to speak the truth.”