Is Our Drinking Water a Chemical Soup?

If you think our drinking water is pure and wholesome, think again. First, where do all the runoff fertilizer and pesticides from residential and agricultural use go? Second, where do all the chemicals discharged from all the manufacturers go? Third, where do all the chemicals ending up in landfills go? Fourth, where do all prescription and over the counter drugs either discarded or metabolized go? Fifth, what contaminants are tested or not tested at your municipal water plant? Sixth, do you know most of the pipes carrying water from the treatment plant to your home in most communities contain lead? Finally, are the chemicals such as chlorine used by water treatment plants for disinfection safe?

As to the first question, here is what USGS (United States Geological Survey), a government agency focusing on biology, geography, geology, and hydrology of the landscape, has to say, “Considerable increases in fertilizer and pesticide use began in the 1960s. In 2010, about 11 billion kilograms of nitrogen fertilizer and 300 million kilograms of pesticides were used annually to enhance crop production or control pests… Fertilizers and pesticides don’t remain stationary on the landscape where they are applied; runoff and infiltration transport these contaminants into local streams, rivers, and groundwater.”¹

In just little over 20 years, the fertilizer use has increased by 73% to 19 billion kilograms (41.9 billion pounds), and pesticides increased by 51% to 454 million kilograms (1 billion pounds). And do not forget: Only two thirds of the fertilizer is used by the crops and less than 0.01% of the pesticides are absorbed by the targeted pests (e.g., weeds and insects).^2,3  

Regarding the second question, nobody knows how much or how many synthetic chemicals producers and users have dumped into the environment since the 1940s. Among all the manmade chemicals discharged into the environment, PFASs (per- and polyfluorinated compounds) known as “forever chemicals,” especially its two family members PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), have been thrust into the spotlight recently due to numerous incidents of widespread contamination and mounting evidence of toxicity.   

PFAS, a class of over 12,000 different manmade chemicals including PFOA and PFOS, is truly ubiquitous – they find their way into hundreds of common household items such as furniture and carpet, water-repellent clothes, cosmetics, cleaning products, fast food wrappers, nonstick pans, paints, firefighting foams – they are detectable in the blood of 98 percent of us.

Of course, they are in our drinking water. In a recent report, EWG (Environment Working Group) stated, “Based on our tests and new academic research that found PFAS widespread in rainwater, EWG scientists now believe PFAS is likely detectable in all major water supplies in the U.S., almost certainly in all that use surface water… Of tap water samples from 44 places in 31 states and the District of Columbia, only one location had no detectable PFAS, and only two other locations had PFAS below the level that independent studies show pose risks to human health.”⁴

“I think it’s one of the biggest threats in drinking water that people don’t have a complete understanding of, and it’s been around for decades,” says David Andrews, PhD, a senior scientist at the EWG who was involved with the report. In fact, the number of communities confirmed to be heavily contaminated with PFAS in the US continues to grow at an alarming rate – as of June 2022, 2,858 locations in 50 states and two territories are known to be heavily contaminated.⁵

One of these locations is close to home – Hoosick Falls, a small town near Albany, New York where I have lived and worked for over 30 years. Despite the danger, nobody knew about the contamination for decades until Hoosick Fall’s resident Michael Hickey launched his own investigation into the town’s water supply since he was concerned about the high rate of cancer in the community. His father, John Hickey, died of kidney cancer in 2013. His father worked for decades at the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant using PFOA, a member of PFAS, to make Teflon for non-stick cooking ware.

In 2014, after searching the connection between PFOA and cancer he took samples from the town water and sent them to a lab for testing on his own dime. The results showed high levels of PFOA and caught the attention of the New York State Department of Health which ran further tests revealing PFOA levels as high as 600 ppt (parts per trillion) in sharp contrast to the EPA health advisory level for PFOA and PFOS at 70 ppt individually or combined at the time.⁴ And the tests also revealed the PFOA contamination reached 18,000 ppt in the groundwater near the Saint-Gobain plant and 21,000 ppt at a nearby dump site.

At long last, EPA has started to realize the gravity of the PFAS problem which extends far beyond the heavily contaminated sites. On April 10, 2024, EPA issued the first-ever national, legally enforceable drinking water standard setting limits for five individual PFAS: PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, and HFPO-DA, as well as four PFAS as a mixture: PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA, and PFBS.

Now for both PFOA and PFOS, the EPA sets the Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) at 4.0 ppt (parts per trillion), and the goal is zero. Just a few years ago, the EPA health advisory level was 70 ppt.⁶ Did the EPA experts not know better or was it because the 70 ppt level was politically convenient?

Now the self-congratulatory EPA proclaimed, “The final rule will reduce PFAS exposure for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses.” This sounds great – finally EPA takes action. On the other hand, EPA has just told us these chemicals have been killing thousands and sickening more but did nothing to stop it for decades.  A reasonable question to ask is, why did EPA drag its feet for so long while people are getting sick and dying? It is never too late, but it is still too little.

In addition to the chemicals for industrial use, chemicals/plastics used in homes are a big problem too. Apart from the poisonous pesticides and toxic cleaning products we use every day, most of the stuff thrown into garbage cans and ending up in landfills are synthetic – they will break down into toxic chemicals over time and find their way into our drinking water.

Pharmaceutical drugs are increasingly becoming a problem too. Let alone the over-the-counter drugs, over 8.7 billion prescriptions were filled in 2021, according to HHS (Human Health Services).⁷ The ingredients of all the common medications are all detectable in drinking water – they come from landfills (pills thrown away) and sewage systems (pills taken and metabolized) through water treatment plants. Just as USGS explained, “Pharmaceuticals get into the water supply via human excretion and by drugs being flushed down the toilet. You might think wastewater treatment plants would take care of the situation, but pharmaceuticals pass through water treatment.”⁸

The worst part is we don’t know what we don’t know. Municipal drinking water treatment plants do not test for these chemicals because they don’t know what to test for.

Municipal drinking water treatment plants indeed test for some heavy metals such as arsenic and lead. But the lead levels at homes could be very different from the levels at the water treatment plants because lead in the aged water pipes underground can leach out. That was the cause of the Flint water crisis in Michigan. Lead contamination isn’t unique to Flint – before lead pipes bringing water into homes were banned in 1986 nationwide, most water pipes underground were made of lead or at least contained lead (lead pipes were used because they are stable, flexible, and rarely leak – they can reshape and adapt as the ground moves). Thank heaven, the lead problem will likely be fixed in the future as the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is implemented. But other problems remain.

A more insidious problem is the collateral damage from water disinfection using chlorine. The implementation of drinking water disinfection and filtration is considered as one of the most important public health advances of the last century, which has effectively eliminated waterborne infectious diseases and poisoning. “But the use of chlorine has a dark side: In addition to inactivating waterborne pathogens, chlorine reacts with natural organic matter to produce a variety of toxic disinfection by-products (DBPs),” reported in the prestigious journal Science.⁹ Studies found an increased risk of bladder cancer after life-long ingestion of chlorinated drinking water.^10-13 EPA acknowledges that exposure to DBPs increased 2-17% of the bladder cancer cases.¹⁴

 In addition to cancer, DBPs are also linked to other health problems such as birth defects.^15-17 The health hazards of DBPs have since been well recognized worldwide. Unfortunately, the full scope of health problems caused by DBPs is yet to be uncovered. Scientists don’t even know how many DBPs are in treated water – at least half of the DBPs are unknown because chlorine is chemically so reactive it reacts with almost everything.¹³ Among over 600 DBPs that has been identified and reported,¹² currently EPA only regulates chlorite, bromate, THMs (trihalomethanes), and HAAs (haloacetic acids). Why only four?

Taken together, unless you live in an area where pesticides/fertilizer are not used and far away from industrial sites, and chorine or other chemicals are not used for disinfection, your drinking water is probably full of toxic chemicals like fertilizer, pesticides, forever chemicals, disinfection by-products, and ingredients of prescription drugs, just to name a few. To say our drinking water is more of a chemical soup than anything else is not fearmongering.