When the American Carla Bartlett was asked in the courtroom at her trial against the chemical company DuPont how she got cancer, she surprised with a simple explanation. “I drank water,” the fifty-nine-year-old told the jury back then, in the fall of 2015. Bartlett had lived in the small town of Coolville, Ohio for years. On the opposite bank of the Ohio River in West Virginia, the group operated a plant for the production of the plastic Teflon. More than 18 years before the trial, doctors had discovered a tumor on Bartlett’s kidney. During the subsequent operation, a piece of her rib was removed in addition to the cancerous growth. DuPont, Bartlett’s attorneys argued, not only dumped perfluorooctanoic acid, a per- and polyfluorinated alkyl compound (PFAS), into the Ohio River, but also concealed the health hazard posed by the contaminated drinking water.
Bartlett’s lawsuit ended with $1.6 million in damages while PFAS compounds, also known as forever chemicals because of their stability, continue to contaminate American drinking water. According to a recent study by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), at least one of the harmful substances is found in almost half of American drinking water. Between 2016 and 2021, the scientists analyzed water from about 700 public and private faucets in all states for traces of 32 of an estimated 12,000 species of PFAS. They detected particularly high concentrations in metropolises such as New York, Boston and Los Angeles. As expected, the researchers also found higher levels and up to nine PFAS variants in more rural regions like Colorado or Wisconsin, where chemical companies produce.
The substances, which are used in the production of dirt-repellent fibers for carpets and clothing, mobile phones and in aircraft construction, among other things, are associated with cancer, obesity, liver damage and reduced fertility. Last summer, the Washington government’s environmental protection agency issued a health warning about PFAS.
Pia Heinemann Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 26 Oliver Schlömer Published/Updated: Tanja Lang and Martin Maria Schwarz Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 16
In order to curb the burden, health organizations advise users to use water filters with activated carbon or osmosis systems. Some cities are in the process of filtering PFAS from drinking water before it reaches household faucets. But the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency warns about the price of clean water. In the state alone, up to 28 billion dollars would have to be raised in the next 20 years to clean water from PFAS. “We have to try,” said a spokeswoman, “not to bring the chemicals into the water cycle in the first place.”