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Toxic PFAS chemicals in tap water near Heathrow and Gatwick [1]
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Date: 2023-06
People living within 10 miles of Heathrow and Gatwick airports have been supplied with drinking water containing increased levels of toxic ‘forever chemicals’ known as PFAS, openDemocracy can reveal.
SES Water, which supplies customers to the north of Gatwick, admitted in documents obtained under the UK’s Environmental Information Regulations that it had detected three such PFAS chemicals (which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in drinking water leaving its treatment works for customers’ taps, each at levels of 15 nanograms per litre of water (ng/l) or below.
Similarly, Thames Water revealed that water at five of the 105 treatment plants it runs within 10 miles of Heathrow was found to contain PFAS quantities in excess of 10 ng/l.
These contamination levels, which may be linked to the use of firefighters’ foam during training exercises, are well below the 100 ng/l limit set in 2021 by the government’s Drinking Water Inspectorate. SES said there were “currently no operational measures, or restrictions, required”, while Thames Water pointed to filtration systems at its facilities – ignoring the fact that the readings in question were taken after water had already been through them.
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But the UK is significantly out of step with the EU, whose limit is 20 times stricter. In November last year, 116 global PFAS experts signed a letter stating that the level of 100 ng/l in drinking water that the World Health Organization had proposed in draft guidance for two chemicals, PFOS and PFOA, was too weak.
Campaigner Dr Julie Schneider of the UK’s CHEM Trust campaign group told openDemocracy: “The standards currently in place in the UK are not protective enough. The maximum levels of individual PFAS acceptable in drinking water should be drastically reduced based on the most up-to-date science. A maximum threshold for the sum of all quantifiable PFAS should also be set, as hundreds of PFAS have been detected in surface water.”
Manmade industrial chemicals known collectively as PFAS – or ‘forever chemicals’, because they can take hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of years to break down in the environment – have been used extensively since the 1940s. There are approximately 10,000 different types, used in all manner of products: firefighting foams, carpets, textiles, non-stick coatings such as Teflon, car waxes, electronics manufacturing, plastics, cosmetics, and even toilet roll.
When these chemicals enter the environment, they accumulate in soil, water, animals and humans. As chemist and PFAS expert Dr Roger Klein explains: “The problem with PFAS is that they are toxic and don’t degrade. As you drink them, you increase your body burden as many build up in the body over time.”
The PFAS compounds found near Gatwick were called FTAB, PFOS and PFBA. PFBA exposure has been linked to “developmental, thyroid, and liver effects in humans”. Thames Water did not disclose which compounds had been found near Heathrow.
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https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/pfas-forever-chemicals-tap-water-heathrow-gatwick/
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