Major change for Australia's drinking water to address 'shock' discovery
Authorities have slashed the allowable amount of PFAS in drinking water, a type of deadly chemical linked to cancer.
Turn on your tap in Australia and you’d expect to find clean, safe, drinking water. But millions of residents have unwittingly been drinking toxic PFAS chemicals, known as “forever chemicals” because they don't break down in the environment or our bodies.
This has forced the government to act, and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has released new draft guidelines, slashing allowable levels of certain types of the chemicals. Australia doesn’t manufacture PFAS, but that hasn’t stopped them entering our household water supplies, rivers and lakes.
“NHMRC suggests that water suppliers regularly share information with the community on the current risks from PFAS in their catchment and the findings from background testing. This transparency will assist in providing consumers with reassurance about the water coming out of their taps,” NHMRC CEO, Professor Steve Wesselingh said.
While the new draft regulations are in line with some allowable limits seen in the United States, it allows for one chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), to be several orders of magnitude higher. The NHMRC has dropped the level from 560 nanograms per litre to 200 nanograms per litre, while in the US it is just 4 nanograms per litre.
Not all experts believe the proposed change to regulations go far enough. "These new proposed drinking water guidelines for Australia are much less stringent than those of the European Union, the United States and Canada," Professor Denis O’Carroll, managing director of the UNSW Water Research Laboratory said.
"PFAS constitute a class of over 14,000 chemicals that have been extensively used in industrial applications and consumer products around the world and are a serious health concern," he explained.
The draft guidelines are now open for public comment until November 22.
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'Shock' at high PFAS levels in one Aussie city
In NSW, water in one area of the upper Blue Mountains and a sample near Newcastle has been found to have levels in drinking water that would exceed the proposed new guidelines. While over in Melbourne it's not just humans being impacted — dolphins in Port Phillip Bay were discovered with the highest levels of PFAS in the world.
Environmental campaigner and Blue Mountains resident Jon Dee told Yahoo News he had expected the authorities had been “doing the right thing” and measuring for PFAS. For years it was known they were a likely contaminant in Australian water, and yet they weren't being tested for.
“For many years I’ve been a high-profile advocate for people drinking tap water instead of bottled water. So when I found out Sydney Water had never tested for PFAS in our drinking water until June this year, I was really shocked,” he said.
While it’s not known how Blue Mountains water became contaminated, one scenario being investigated is the use of fire fighting foam to put out a petrol tanker crash in 1992 before making its way into dams used to supplement water supply.
“If it is the source of the contamination it means we’ve been drinking the water for over 30 years with PFAS in it,” Dee added.
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What does PFAS do to the body?
PFAS has been widely used in everyday items such as fire-fighting foam, non-stick cookware, clothing, furniture, insecticides and food packaging. In animals, lifetime exposure has been linked to:
Increased risk of testicular and kidney cancer
Lower birth weight in babies
Reduced kidney function
Altered immune system function
Later age for starting menstruations
Earlier menopause
Birds routinely die after PFAS exposure from cooking
Birds have been known to die if you excessively overheat a Teflon pan with the windows shut. They are particularly sensitive to airborne particulates and gas emissions, and that’s why they were traditionally used as air quality indicators in coal mines.
The new draft guidelines were updated following similar revisions in the United State. They include new advice for:
perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS)
perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)
perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS)
perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS)
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