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Toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or "forever chemicals," are in everything from and clothing to water and floss. However, new research reveals they are potentially even more widespread in the U.S. than previously thought.

New research done by Northeastern University's PFAS Project Lab reveals that while there are about 2,200 known sites of PFAS contamination in the U.S., there are close to another 80,000 likely contaminated sites.

The study, in Environmental Science & Technology, presents what the researchers say is a much more complete—and stark—picture of PFAS contamination while also presenting legislators, communities and environmental activists with a roadmap of where to focus their efforts.

The PFAS Project Lab has been mapping sites contaminated by forever chemicals, an entire class of toxic substances, for about a decade. It started as a way to address what remains the biggest issue around PFAS remediation.

"We don't know where PFAS is or where it's coming from," says Kimberly Garrett, a postdoctoral research fellow with the PFAS Project Lab and lead on this research.

As the lab started to map known PFAS contamination sites, they realized that the data was limited. Since PFAS testing is far from widespread—it's largely up to states or environmental organizations to conduct testing—they were entirely reliant on an incomplete picture of contamination.

Their map of known contamination sites makes it appear like California, New England and Michigan are the only areas with heavy PFAS levels, but those are the areas where testing was done.

To fill in the blanks, they developed a model that helped them map presumptive contamination sites. It relies on information about certain kinds of industrial sites that are known for emitting PFAS. The end result is a more complete sense of just how widespread PFAS contamination in the U.S. likely is.

According to Garrett, they found that 94% of known PFAS contamination sites had average PFAS groundwater concentrations that were above accepted regulatory levels.

"We did find that, overall, all of the sites that we knew about had elevated PFAS concentrations that were above health-based guidelines," Garrett says. "We found that some were associated with really high values, but they were all associated with unacceptable values."

The lab's recently published paper represents the most up-to-date and complete picture of nationwide PFAS contamination. The most recent updates have given the lab further insight into what kinds of sources, sites and industries are most associated with emitting PFAS.

Contamination sites were divided into several categories: airports, industrial facilities, military facilities, municipal fire activities and waste treatment plants. What the researchers found was that three of these categories—airports, military facilities and municipal fire activities—"consistently had significantly higher PFAS detections than the other site types," Garrett says.

What they all had in common was a substance called aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), which is used most consistently in fighting fires. AFFF was consistently connected to the highest average PFAS concentrations, something that's been known among those studying PFAS for years.

What was more surprising was that Garrett and the other researchers on the project were able to partially identify specific industries that are most commonly associated with PFAS contamination: metal and electronics manufacturing.

"Metal manufacturers and electronic manufacturers could use a little more scrutiny in that area, especially as we think about making investments in semiconductor manufacturing and things like that," Garrett says.

Finding the industrial sources of PFAS contamination is vital, Garrett explains. There have been some made to curb PFAS pollution, but attention has largely been paid to water treatment plants, not the industrial sources where forever chemicals are flowing from.

"Turning off the tap of PFAS starts at the source," Garrett says. "We can't discount the industrial contributions to PFAS contamination."

By mapping out not only contamination sites but the broader "waste stream" that these chemicals flow through, Phil Brown, co-director of the PFAS Project Lab, hopes this data can help inform legislators and communities about where to target testing and remediation efforts.

"Once you identify the waste stream, you can also say, "Near this wastewater treatment plant are potential manufacturers and users,'" Brown says. "We can then tell them that they have to cut down their emissions before it gets into our [treatment] plants."

"We know that resources for testing bodies and regulatory bodies and municipal utilities are very limited, so we hope that our tools can serve as a guide for if a municipality or a state has so much money for testing and they say, what would be the most impactful way to use this?" Garrett adds. "We think that this paper can contribute to those kinds of decisions."

This story is republished courtesy of Northeastern Global News .