How PFAS From A Military Base Has Sickened Nearby Residents

Newburgh, New York, is one of 10 communities involved in a CDC-led study to understand the effects of PFAS—forever chemicals—on health.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  WNYC is supported by Bayer. Science is about asking questions, testing, trying again. It's not easy, but it's relentless. It evolves, and that's why science delivers. Learn more at sciencedelivers.com.

• 0:14Ira Flatow?

  Science Friday is supported by MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design. MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com.

• 0:32Flora Lichtman?

  I'm Flora Lichtman, and you're listening to Science Friday.

• 0:38Flora Lichtman?

  Today in the show, studying the link between our health and forever chemicals.

• 0:43Speaker 03

  They might take hundreds to thousands of years to break down in the environment, and some of them take years to be eliminated from the human body.

• 0:56Flora Lichtman?

  We're headed to Newburgh, New York. It's a small city about 70 miles north of New York City. And for decades, residents were unknowingly drinking water contaminated with toxic PFAS, aka forever chemicals. Now, the CDC is studying the health effects of PFAS exposure in Newburgh, along with nine other sites. Preliminary data from city residents links PFAS with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Here to tell us more are Dr. Erin Bell, environmental epidemiologist at the University at Albany in New York, who led the Newburgh study, and Chantelle Riley, a health and science reporter who's been covering PFAS for years. Welcome to Science Friday.

• 1:36Speaker 04

  Thank you very much.

• 1:37Speaker 03

  Thanks for having us.

• 1:39Flora Lichtman?

  OK, let's start with some definitions. When we talk about PFAS, what are we talking about?

• 1:45Speaker 04

  Sure. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS for short, is a family of chemicals that includes anywhere from 9,000 to 12,000 separate chemicals used in manufacturing and in firefighting foam. Historically, they've been used as nonstick coating, Teflon, for example, in our cookware, also in rain- or water-resistant clothing, and certainly in the firefighting foam, as I mentioned. They're a concern because they tend to stay in our bodies and in the environment for a very long time, so we refer to them as persistent chemicals. And they can interrupt or interfere with our hormonal processes in our bodies.

• 2:29Flora Lichtman?

  I've also heard of PFOA and PFOS. Are those, do those fall under the umbrella of PFAS chemicals?

• 2:38Speaker 04

  Yes, they do. And the PFOA was in fact, the first chemical that was highlighted as a chemical of concern in the early 2000s as we started to understand the health effects related to these chemicals.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  PFAS are incredibly tough. They're dubbed forever chemicals because they do not break down in the environment. So they're made up of a chain of carbon atoms that are surrounded by fluorine atoms. And so they have this carbon fluorine bond, and it's one of the strongest bonds known in chemistry. And so this makes them resistant to heat, water, oil, grease. It makes them slippery. It makes them resistant to stains and corrosion. They're also very persistent. And researchers think they might take anywhere in the range of hundreds to thousands of years to break down in the environment. And they also take, some of them take years to be eliminated from the human body.

• 3:35Flora Lichtman?

  Chantal, let's talk about Newburgh. When did the PFAS contamination come to light there?

• 3:41Speaker 03

  The PFAS water crisis in Newburgh was made public in and around 2016. So I was a newspaper reporter covering Newburgh at the time. And like most people, I had no clue what PFAS were. They were quickly traced back to the Stuart Air Base, which is about a mile outside of the city. Like other air bases and military bases around the country, PFAS were being used there in a specific kind of fire foam called A triple F. And it was used to fight fires, but it was also used to train firefighters. So, so there was very little information at the time about the possible health impacts of PFAS.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  The EPA, however, had set an advisory level of 70 parts per trillion.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  For PFOA and PFOS, PFOS combined at the time was not an enforceable rule. It was just a safety level that

• 4:44Flora Lichtman?

  A warning.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  Right. And so the city's main drinking water reservoir had about double that amount of PFOS. And, and just so you understand how toxic this stuff is, one part per trillion is equal to one drop in 20 Olympic sized swimming pools.

• 5:02Flora Lichtman?

  Wow, one drop in 20 Olympic sized swimming pools is one part per trillion, right?

• 5:08Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 5:08Flora Lichtman?

  And the EPA advisory was like 70 drops in 20 Olympic swimming pools.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  Correct. And so, so the state stepped in and built a filtration system at the city's water plant. And then later it, it paid for clean water from the Catskill Aqueduct to supply the city's drinking water.

• 5:29Flora Lichtman?

  Hmm. Erin, you've studied this community. What have you found?

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Back in 2016, when the New York State Department of Health began doing the biomonitoring, we found higher than average levels of PFOS and PFH excess in particular. And both of those are components of firefighting fund.

• 5:50Flora Lichtman?

  And you found them in people's bodies?

• 5:52Speaker 04

  That's right. We found them in the, in the blood testing, both adults and children had levels higher than what we were seeing at, at the national levels. When we did that biomonitoring, there was a brief survey, a health survey also administered. And we saw higher rates of high blood pressure as well as suggested higher rates of coronary artery disease and potentially also cholesterol with the higher levels of PFOS. So this information is important because it will help us better plan and understand the data analysis we are concurrently conducting in the much larger study sponsored and paid for by the Centers for Disease Control.

• 6:36Flora Lichtman?

  Do, do we have any sense of? A possible mechanism of action, how some of these chemicals might cause cardiovascular disease, for example?

• 6:46Speaker 04

  With these, particularly the long-lasting or highly persistent chemicals like PFOA and PFOS, we refer to them as endocrine disruptors, meaning they interfere with our hormonal systems. And that is why we often see and examine health outcomes related to things like the functioning of the thyroid, the immunology system, the digestive system, some cancers, it's also neurodevelopment in children, are all very much correlated with the functioning of our hormonal systems, and so we're always concerned about that. So there's been a number of studies that does show that these compounds have the ability to interfere with our body's normal functioning.

• 7:28Flora Lichtman?

  Chantel, you've interviewed residents of Newburgh. What do you hear from them?

• 7:32Speaker 03

  Well, they're scared. They're worried for their own health, they're worried for the health of their families. They're also very angry. This has been dragged on for so long. Nine years later, the Air Force, unbelievably, is still in the planning phases of its-

• 7:52Flora Lichtman?

  Of cleanup?

• 7:53Speaker 03

  Yes. They have still not conducted a full cleanup at the airbase, and there are still PFAS chemicals circulating within Newburgh's watershed. And so it's been a very long and painful wait.

• 8:07Flora Lichtman?

  You know, a couple of years ago, the EPA set limits for six different PFAS chemicals in drinking water. I think it was the very first law to do that. Does that law still stand?

• 8:20Speaker 03

  No, no. The short answer is no. So, under the Biden EPA, they set a limit, what's known as a maximum contaminant level. But in May, the Trump EPA rescinded the rule for four of those chemicals, but left it in place for PFAS and PFOA. But they delayed that rule until 2031. So a lot can happen in six years. A lot of people can be exposed in six years. There's a lot of contamination that can go on. A few days after the Trump administration took over, the EPA reversed another rule that would have curbed PFAS and industrial wastewater.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  A plan to designate PFOA and PFAS as hazardous substances has also fallen by the wayside. You add this to the severe cuts that are taking place at the EPA right now. The agency has ended many grants for research and research on PFAS. And so it's not at all good in terms of clean water.

• 9:23Flora Lichtman?

  So it seems like we can't rely on the federal government to regulate them, at least right now. What about states? Are states regulating these chemicals?

• 9:32Speaker 03

  They absolutely are. So each state is different. So it's a big mixed bag in terms of regulations, state to state. New York currently has a limit of 10 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFAS. It also bans the sales of carpets and toys with PFAS, food packaging with PFAS, clothing and outdoor gear and fire foam with PFAS. California bans PFAS in menstrual products. Maine bans the spreading of PFAS in bio sludge or bio solids, which is a type of fertilizer.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  So the states, in short, are very, very key in helping to manage the spread of PFAS. And it's really filling a void that the federal government has left behind.

• 10:24Flora Lichtman?

  So the CDC study is focusing on these 10 communities where we know there's contamination. Do we understand the scale of exposure across the United States?

• 10:33Speaker 03

  There is some data on the number of public water systems that have been affected by PFAS. So the Environmental Working Group currently estimates that 165 million people approximately are now exposed to PFAS through polluted drinking water systems across the country.

• 11:00Flora Lichtman?

  So you both have such deep expertise on this. Do you personally try to limit your exposure to PFAS chemicals?

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, I, I have a reverse osmosis filtration system under my sink. There are also pitchers and point-of-use filters that you can put on your faucets, or you can add to your home plumbing system to filter out PFAS coming into your home. There are some positive things happening, too, in terms of PFAS prevention, or PFAS pollution prevention. There's growing awareness of the dangers of PFAS in drinking water and PFAS exposure.

• 11:49Flora Lichtman?

  Hard to call that a positive, exactly.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Well, well, awareness, awareness matters because it can lead to the kind of organization that we're seeing in communities like Newburgh, where people are advocating for themselves. People can also go to their public water utilities to find out if there are PFAS in their, in the public water, in their tap water. So that information is available publicly. But what we really, really need are strong laws that protect us from PFAS exposure at the state and federal level. And it, it seems like every time there's some progress at the federal level, we then have a change of administration, and then we take two steps back.

• 12:33Flora Lichtman?

  I want to thank you both for joining me today. Thank you very much.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Thanks for having us.

• 12:38Flora Lichtman?

  Chantel Riley is a health and science writer based in New York, and Dr. Erin Bell is an environmental epidemiologist at the University at Albany in New York. To learn more about this research, head to sciencefriday.com/pfas. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate and review us if you like the show. And you can always leave us a comment on this segment on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you.

• 13:02Flora Lichtman?

  Today's episode was produced by Rasha Aridi. I'm Flora Lichtman. Thanks for listening.