PFAS water contamination in schools is forcing thousands of children to avoid fountains and rely on bottled water
A PFAS contamination crisis in school drinking water has forced dozens of classrooms across the country to quietly switch to bottled water.
This week, two schools in Aroostook County, Maine, will begin the year with a ban on water fountains until at least the end of November after tests found the school’s drinking supply was laced with chemicals linked to cancer, infertility and other diseases.
In Cumberland County, North Carolina, several schools have been forced to switch exclusively to bottled water after PFAS chemicals were also found in their water.
The area has been plagued by a spate of cancer diagnoses, blood diseases and infant deaths, which locals fear are linked to a nearby chemical plant.
Overall, schools in at least six states have had their drinking water tested and, as a result, banned the use of tap and fountain water. However, because water testing is not required by law, many children may be unknowingly exposed to chemicals, forcing some districts to do so to take matters into their own hands.
The problem facing schools is of particular concern given the relationship between PFAS and developmental delays in children, as these have been linked to disruption of the hormone pathways critical to human growth and development.
Some schools have only recently learned of levels of PFAS contamination in drinking water, prompting officials to close off water fountains and give students bottled water instead. Some schools have asked parents to send their children to school with bottled water as well
PFAS are microscopic man-made chemicals present in food packaging, clothing and thousands of household products in the US.
Because of their ubiquity, they leach into the soil, drinking water, air and food. They are considered “forever chemicals” because they are not broken down in the human body and damage DNA, increasing the risk of cancer, infertility and other diseases.
States and individual school districts, in the absence of government action, have launched their own water monitoring systems to determine the magnitude of the problem, and many have found that water levels of PFAS are alarmingly high.
Water testing at Miscoe Hill Middle School in Mendon, Massachusetts from April to June 2022 found that PFAS levels reached 24 nanograms/liter (ng/l)exceeding the state’s maximum contamination level of 20 ng/l.
The following quarter, levels were even higher. From July to September of that year, water levels exceeded 43 ng/l.
Tests by Energy and Environmental Affairs showed that the school had elevated levels of PFAS exceeded state standards more than 10 times. It has been buying liters of bottled water for its students since 2022.
While dozens, if not hundreds, of schools have shut down water fountains in favor of distributing more reliable bottled water, this measure is a Band-Aid that covers up the long-standing problem of overexposure to industrial chemicals with major health risks.
PFAS contamination is a relatively new concern, as scientists have only begun to study the long-term effects of drinking contaminated water and breathing poisoned air in the past decade.
The problem facing schools is of particular concern given the relationship between PFAS and developmental delays in children.
This is because the damage PFAS contamination does to the hormonal and metabolic pathways necessary for human growth and development, according to a February study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
The two schools in northern Maine made headlines Tuesday when district officials announced that students would be given bottled water instead of being allowed to use fountains and tap water after state-sponsored testing revealed levels of PFAS reached 34 parts per trillion, much more than the 20 parts per trillion safe level required by the state.
These schools are the newest, but by no means the only ones to take similar steps. And they’re not the only schools in Maine to have done this.
Students and staff at Hermon High School in Maine have been using exclusively bottled drinking water since February 2023 after water from faucets and fountains was tested for PFAS above the state limit.
In Westchester County, New York, one school has been using bottled water-only protocol since 2018. The nearby Pequenakonck Elementary School meanwhile became ordered by the state in 2021 to stop drinking tap and fountain water.
The state health department said at the time: “The advisories, issued out of a great deal of caution, direct school communities to stop using water for drinking, cooking and food preparation… following the very recent discovery of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane. sulfonate (PFOS) in the schools’ water systems at levels above New York’s recently adopted and highly protective maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) of 10 parts per trillion each.”
In Cumberland County, North Carolina, where a factory has been releasing PFAS into the Cape Fear River for decades, Gray’s Creek Elementary and Alderman Road Elementary schools have been using exclusively bottled water since 2020 following state testing.
The Mendon-Upton Regional School District, where Miscoe Hill School is located, received million-dollar grants from the state to install two new water treatment systems to filter out PFAS, a major win for officials and school administrators.
Jay Byer, school district director of finance and operations said: ‘We are very grateful for the subsidies.
“We’ve only been able to use the water for flushing toilets, we can’t use it for cooking…we’ve been buying 5-gallon bottles from WB Mason for a while now.”
The cities depicted on the map are just a handful of the many cities that have been found to have higher concentrations of PFAS in public water supplies and private wells. Information comes from the Environmental Working Group
The rate of cancer diagnoses in most cities designated by the Environmental Working Group due to high levels of PFAS in the water is above the national average of about 439 cases per 100,000 population
State-issued water testing initiatives are a boon to local communities and schools, which often struggle to fund such projects. Statewide support, however, is not uniform across the country. Some provinces and school boards have had to fill these gaps themselves.
The Wausau School Board in Wisconsin closed the water fountains in 17 of its 20 schools after tests conducted by the city determined chemical contamination levels ranged from 23 to 48 parts per trillion.
The state’s Department of Natural Resources proposed limits recommend that concentrations do not exceed 20 parts per trillion.
Once the extent of the contamination was known, schools told parents to send their children to class with bottled water, as they could not rely on water fountains as usual.
The problem was not resolved until earlier this year when the school district informed parents that “your students can now use our water fountains” after a message from the city’s Public Works Department said PFAS levels at water facilities are “undetectable.”
But just because the city’s water treatment plant showed only small amounts of chemicals, school officials acknowledged that wouldn’t be enough to quell some concerned parents.
The school district’s message added, “As always, you are welcome to bring bottled water to school if you feel more comfortable doing so.”
The drinking water in schools comes from municipal water systems or their own water systems, such as wells. In fact, about 8,000 schools and nurseries depend on their own water systems not uniformly tested.
In many cases, the burden of testing private well water falls on the individual owner, although some health or environmental departments at the state or local level may provide guidance on testing private wells.
Meanwhile, nearly 100,000 public schools and about half a million childcare facilities draw water from local community water systems and are not required to conduct additional testing for contaminants such as PFAS.