Expert: New PFAS limits will be ‘even more protective’

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — After Sandy Wynn-Stelt lost her husband to liver cancer in 2016, she learned the drinking water in her Belmont-area home had been contaminated with high PFAS levels for decades.

She and her husband, Joel, moved into the house in 1992. It was right across the street from a Christmas tree farm and seemed like the perfect place to settle down.

Belmont woman fighting PFAS diagnosed with cancer

Wynn-Stelt later found out the picturesque farm was formerly where Wolverine Worldwide, a Rockford-based shoemaker, had dumped PFAS-tainted sludge for years. It later made its way into local well water. Wolverine has paid tens of millions in settlements and cleanup efforts.

Tests later confirmed that Wynn-Stelt’s blood had 750 times more PFAS than the average American.

“I think you can plan your life out all you want,” she said. “Trust me, it’s going to take a left turn and all you can do is ride the wave.”

Plainfield Twp. extends terms of Wolverine’s PFAS settlement payment

Wynn-Stelt was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2020. She later went through a total thyroidectomy and had lymph nodes removed. Because doctors knew how much PFAS was in her blood, she said she got a head start in monitoring for and then treating the illness.

She is now three years cancer-free. What she went through compelled her into advocacy. Now as the co-chair for the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network, she advocates for stronger PFAS regulations nationwide.

This week, the Environmental Protection Agency made the decision she always wanted: the first ever national regulation limiting six different types of PFAS chemicals in drinking water.

Activists, experts celebrate new EPA standards on PFAS pollution

“I guarantee you a meeting with the EPA and going to Washington did not make the top 300 things I was going to do at this stage of my life,” she said. “It was never a plan.”

The EPA says the new rule applies to 66,000 water systems nationwide. Up to 10% of them may need to reduce PFAS levels in their water.

Water providers will have three years to test for PFAS. If the levels are too high, they will have two years to install treatment systems to get rid of the contamination.

“It’s going to mean that literally millions of people are going to have cleaner water that they’re drinking,” she said.

The EPA estimates it will prevent PFAS exposure in drinking water for 100 million people and prevent thousands of deaths.

The new rule will cost over $1.5 billion to implement nationwide each year, the agency said. Utility groups have raised concerns over the rules costing billions of dollars. The Biden administration is dedicating $1 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law to pay for testing and treating public water systems.

Several wells in Hamilton test positive for PFAS contamination

Cheryl Murphy, the director of the Center for PFAS Research at Michigan State University, said the EPA’s decision is significant for PFAS prevention and elimination efforts going forward. The MSU center measures PFAS levels in the environment and their impacts on humans, fish and wildlife.

Murphy explained that PFAS are dubbed “forever chemicals” because the molecules don’t break down in the body — they just stay there.

“They don’t have a specific way of operating. They’ll just kind of disrupt a bunch of different processes in our body,” she said. “It’s hard to dictate what the cause of health is because they disrupt so many things in very subtle ways.”

PFAS has been linked in numerous studies to testicular cancer, kidney cancer and breast cancer. It has also been associated with metabolic disorders and could disrupt our immune system, Murphy said.

Public health officials are still researching how the chemicals could cause of cancer and other diseases.

“In epidemiological studies, there are some suggestions they do interfere with a lot of these processes,” Murphy explained. “Cancer takes a long time to develop. Having a direct cause to cancer is hard in most situations.”

Quest Health now offering test to check PFAS levels

Michigan was the first state to test public drinking water statewide for PFAS. The state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy has had maximum contaminant levels for seven PFAS compounds since 2020.

“It’s a win for Michigan, but we were kind of ahead of the game,” Wynn-Stelt said. “We had already set low MCLs but this is much, much lower. This will be even more protective.”

Murphy argued the nationwide PFAS standard will ensure each state follows the same protocol.

“There’s some people that are getting their water tested for these chemicals, and there are some people that aren’t,” she said. “Having a federal drinking water standard means everybody is going to have to test for it. Everybody will know what’s in their drinking water and will probably have to clean it up.”

Murphy predicted it will take at least a decade to filter out PFAS from drinking water and remove it from the environment, including rivers, streams, lakes and soil. But the EPA’s decision is a start, she said.

“It’s going to put a lot of pressure on water utility companies to make sure they have the right filters to get rid of these chemicals out of their drinking water,” she said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com.