Mara Hoplamazian

You know, they were found in polar bears and seals in East Greenland.

They were found in penguins in Antarctica.

So it's really hard to get away from these things.

And when it comes to tap water in the U.S., the U.S.

Geological Service tried to get a handle on this with a study that came out a few years ago.

They tested for more than 30 different PFAS chemicals of the, you know, roughly 15,000 that exist.

And they found at least 45 percent of the nation's tap water has one or more of 30 plus PFAS chemicals in it.

Are PFAS legally allowed in drinking water?

As of two years ago, 2024, there are federal regulations for how much of a few PFAS chemicals are allowed in drinking water.

And that means public water systems all across the U.S.

will need to start testing for PFAS chemicals and treating their water to remove them.

But the deadline for water systems to do that work is unclear.

And we don't know yet which Forever Chemicals water systems will be required to test for and remove.

That's because the Trump administration is pushing for some changes to what the EPA had planned under Biden, essentially proposing to keep rules for just two of the legacy PFAS chemicals that aren't really being used anymore, PFOA and PFOS, and rescind the rules for a handful of other PFAS chemicals the EPA did regulate in 2021.

And in terms of the regulations themselves, the federal regulations for PFOA and PFOS are four parts per trillion.

But the EPA has said if the levels were set solely based on health, they would be at zero parts per trillion.

So essentially saying, you know, there's not a safe level of these chemicals to be drinking.

So I wonder if you want to know, does the tap water in my area have PFAS in it?

What would be your first step?

Many states have already done testing.