Cold Snap Caused 220 Broken Water Mains for WSSC

 

On Tuesday WSSC Water lifted the essential water use request for all 1.9 million customers in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. Over the weekend and through Monday this request to use water only as necessary and conserve where ever possible was in effect. Due in part to the public’s water-conservation efforts, WSSC Water was able to  able to stabilize water pressure, and water storage levels have returned to normal. The Potomac and Patuxent Water Filtration Plants are fully operational to meet customer demand. The problems in the water system were caused by:

• A high number of water main breaks/leaks coupled with water production limitations brought on by the cold temperatures increased the risk of loss of pressure system-wide.
• From January 1-13: WSSC Water has experienced about 220 breaks/leaks in water mains with approximately184 of those occurring in the past 6 days.
• On Sunday, January 12, a 24” water main break and a 12” main break that had not been identified threatened system storage reserves. 

On Monday alone WSSC Water was responding to 52 breaks/leaks. As always customers are urged to contact WSSC Water’s Emergency Services Center at (301) 206-4002 to report any running water or if they smell chlorine, which is used to disinfect drinking water. Reports can also be made via the WSSC Water Mobile App using the Report a Problem feature.

WSSC Water was able to stabilize the system by calling in additional crews and emergency contractors to search for any unreported breaks/leaks and make repairs. With so many breaks happening, WSSC Water was forced to  shut down broken/leaking mains until repair crews were dispatched to the break in an effort to keep the system pressures stable. This caused longer than usual times for repairs and some customers  experienced water outages or lower pressure for more extended periods than usual. 

from WSSC

There is a direct connection between dropping water temperatures in the Potomac River and the increase in water main breaks. When the temperature drops the incidence of water main breaks rise. According to the WSSC, they typically see an increase in breaks a few days after the Potomac River temperature hits a new low. The dropping water temperature can “shock” water mains, and though the pipes become accustomed to the cold water; whenever water temperatures hit a new low, there is a spike in breaks. As seen in the chart above the recent cold snap and the one at the end of November have lead to an increase in breaks.

On average, WSSC crews repair more than 1,800 water main breaks and leaks each year, with the vast majority of them, approximately 1,200, occurring between November and February. WSSC has already repaired approximately 200 breaks and leaks in November and 220 since January 1 this year.  Last winter as seen below, the total number of breaks was above average. There is still a large percentage of the distribution system that is quite old.

WSSC Water spends approximately $17 million each year for emergency water main repairs alone, with about $10 million spent November through February. During a typical year, WSSC Water crews repair more than 1,800 water main breaks and leaks, approximately 65 % of which (1,152) occur between November and February.

Responding to these emergencies has slowed WSSC’s ability to replace the older water mains and WSSC continues to work to update the system. WSSC serves 1.9 million customers in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, with approximately 5,900 miles of water mains covering a 1,000-square-mile area. With such an extensive, aging distribution system spanning the two counties it is hard to keep up and very difficult to move forward to reduce the age of the system of pipes.

from WSSC

Fairfax County Report on the Environmental 2024

At the end of the year the Environmental Quality Advisory Council (EQAC) of Fairfax County released its annual report. This report is intended to provide a big picture view of how environmental programs are working and identify areas that require attention. For 2024, they found that residents and businesses can expect clean water, and good air quality. They largely attributed the county’s clean water and good air quality to the county’s past environmental investments; however, they felt that the county will need to do more to address climate change and other environmental challenges to maintain a healthy environment and continue to improve our quality of life.

I would like to highlight some of the portions of the report that address water quality and availability and have excerpted them from the report.  The Potomac River and Occoquan Reservoir are the primary source water for Fairfax Water which supplies 85% of the drinking water in the county.  Fairfax Water draws water from the Potomac River near the James J. Corbalis Water Treatment Plant and from the Occoquan Reservoir at the Frederick F. Griffith Water Treatment Plant. The remaining drinking water is drawn from groundwater.

 Fairfax Water provides about 167 million gallons per day (mgd) of drinking water to nearly two million people in Northern Virginia, including most residents of Fairfax County. Fairfax Water also provides drinking water to the Prince William County Service Authority, Loudoun Water, Virginia America Water Company (City of Alexandria and Dale City), Town of Herndon, Town of Vienna, Fort Belvoir and Dulles Airport. As of 2014, both the City of Fairfax and the City of Falls Church systems were incorporated into Fairfax Water’s system. In addition, Fairfax Water purchases some treated water from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington Aqueduct Division, treated at plants in Washington, D.C.

Fairfax Water provides highly advanced treatment for the water delivered to its customers, but those treatment systems cannot remove salt, PFAS and other emerging contaminants. Although Fairfax Water produces safe and high-quality drinking water that meets all current standards, some water-quality concerns are appearing at the National level. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released final national primary drinking water standards for six types of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). According to Fairfax Water’s Statement on EPA’s Final PFAS Standards for Drinking Water, released April 10, 2024, Potomac River water from the Corbalis plant currently meets the standards while the Occoquan Reservoir sourced water from the Griffith plant does not. The standards do not take immediate effect, but Fairfax Water is evaluating treatment processes to ensure that their water will meet these standards. Also, more studies are needed to determine the specific sources of PFAS in the Occoquan watershed.

Fairfax Water does not explicitly identify the Corbalis and Griffith service areas. The boundaries vary depending upon pumping and demand. (Fairfax has interconnections in the distribution system.) Nevertheless, if future concerns arise about either plant’s output, EQAC felt it may be necessary, in the interests of transparency, to provide a map of approximate service areas of water originating in the Occoquan Reservoir and from the Potomac River. There are no plans to differentiate the costs of the water in the service areas.

The Occoquan Reservoir obtains its water from the Occoquan Watershed and the Upper Occoquan Service Authority (UOSA) Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Occoquan Watershed covers about 590 square miles and includes the Occoquan Reservoir, which serves as the boundary between Fairfax and Prince William counties. Unlike the vastly larger Potomac Watershed, the Occoquan water supply is very susceptible to pollutants introduced in local jurisdictions and through the recycled water from UOSA.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal Report, roughly 250 existing data centers in Northern Virginia use about 4,000 MW of electric power, and another 7,000 MW could be added with the data centers approved and under construction. EQAC differentiates the water and power use of the older data centers from the newer projects just completed or under construction. Older data centers typically range from 10 MW to 50 MW in size and use conventional commercial air conditioners for heat dissipation. Newer data centers are larger, around 300 MW; requiring this much more cooling capacity to dissipate the heat from the energy use makes evaporative cooling, commonly used for power plants, an attractive option.

A 300 MW data center would need to evaporate about 3 million gallons per day (mgd)  of water to the atmosphere. Adding 7,000 MW of data center capacity using evaporative cooling would introduce about 70 mgd of consumptive water use, almost doubling existing consumptive water uses in the Potomac River Basin. None of this increased usage is included in the 2020 ICPRB estimates. All evaporative cooling systems concentrate any solids and other contaminants in the water and must discharge highly saline “blowdown” water. This is particularly worrisome in the Occoquan basin, where sodium levels already are of some concern. At present, it is not known if new data centers will actually request water for evaporative cooling, nor is it known if mitigation, such as interruptible water service, would be acceptable.

 Though the recycled water from UOSA is already part of the water supply for the Griffith plant, recycled water from the Noman M. Cole Jr., Wastewater Treatment Plant which currently treats about 40 mgd  may be an option for reuse for evaporative cooling. Clearly, any use of evaporative cooling for new data centers must be considered carefully as a regional issue and the type of cooling should be stated at approval. Considering their potential impacts to water supplies, EQAC recommends, if large data centers are approved with evaporative cooling, conditions must consider (1) Possible water cutoff during periods of drought; (2) Use of recycled wastewater where feasible; and (3) No return of any “blowdown” to the Occoquan Reservoir.

EQAC made three recommendations one from the 2023 report.

1. Continue and enhance the protection of the Occoquan Reservoir by developing a plan for managing threats such as PFAS and sodium. Fund monitoring and modeling of emerging contaminants such as PFAS and of the rising sodium levels in the Occoquan Reservoir. This effort should include an inventory of present and proposed pollution sources, such as data centers and other industrial facilities.
2. Continue to participate with the ICPRB in studying water supplies in the Potomac River. In particular, ecological studies of low flows in the Potomac Gorge.
3. If large data centers are approved with evaporative cooling, approval conditions must consider (1) Possible water cutoff during periods of drought; (2) Use of recycled wastewater where feasible; and (3) No return of any “blowdown” to the Occoquan Reservoir.

 

Organofluorines in Wastewater

B.J. Ruyle, E.H. Pennoyer, S. Vojta, J. Becanova, M. Islam, T.F. Webster, W. Heiger-Bernays, R. Lohmann, P. Westerhoff, C.E. Schaefer, E.M. Sunderland, High organofluorine concentrations in municipal wastewater affect downstream drinking water supplies for millions of Americans, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.122 (3) e2417156122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2417156122 (2025)

The article below is to a large extent excerpted from the above cited article.

Since the 1940s, humans have synthesized tens of thousands of organofluorine chemicals that are extensively used in products such as refrigeration, fluoropolymers, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and nonstick and greaseproof coatings. A subset of organofluorine compounds, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), has garnered intense interest in recent years because they have been associated with numerous adverse effects on the health of humans and wildlife; and recently been regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2024, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized federal regulations for six PFAS in drinking water: PFOS and PFOA and the hazardous mixture of PFBS, perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS), perfluorononanoate (PFNA), and hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA/GenX)

Municipal wastewater is increasingly being used to supplement drinking water supplies. With an environmental buffer, such as a lake, river, or a groundwater aquifer, before the water is drawn to and treated at a drinking water treatment plant is called indirect reuse. There is also direct potable reuse where the wastewater stream is simply treated further and sent to the drinking water distribution system. The contaminants in the wastewater are a growing concern that is being highlighted by the appearance of PFAS in the EPA mandated testing of drinking water supplies.  Some municipal water supplies may be receiving PFAS contaminants from the wastewater used to supplement water supplies.

Municipal wastewater treatment facilities receive PFAS from diverse domestic and industrial sources and have been thought to be associated with impaired drinking water quality across the United States. To better understand the magnitude and composition of aqueous organofluorine discharged from large wastewater treatment facilities, sampling was necessary and the above cited study does just that. 

The complexity of analytical methods used to detect and quantify organofluorine in wastewater has in the past limited our understanding of its prevalence. Most wastewater measurements have focused on a few intensively studied PFAS. However, recent work using bulk organofluorine measurements such as extractable organofluorine found the presence of large quantities of unknown organofluorine.

Prior work on wastewater biosolids suggests that pharmaceuticals may account for a substantial fraction of the unknown extractable organofluorine mass. The researchers constructed a mass budget for extractable organofluorine  measured in the wastewater influent and effluent samples from eight large wastewater treatment plants. These plants were chosen because they use similar treatment technologies and are similar in sizes as those serving 70% of the US population. Measurements of extractable organofluorine  taken  in this study were combined with the DRINCS model to quantify wastewater impacts on downstream drinking water sources. Results of this work provide estimates of the number of drinking water facilities (and their service populations) which would need to mitigate upstream wastewater-derived organofluorine sources and/or implement advanced drinking water treatment to prevent exposures to toxic substances.

The sum of targeted PFAS, precursors, and fluorinated pharmaceuticals explains all of the EOF in aqueous influent and effluent samples in this study, within commonly accepted uncertainty bounds (±30%) in all but two samples. What they found was that extractable organofluorine  was poorly removed during wastewater treatment.  

All eight wastewater treatment plants in this study had primary (physical screening/settling) and secondary (microbial processing of labile organic matter) treatment. Half of the facilities had advanced tertiary treatments including ozonation, activated carbon filtration, and ultrafiltration. However, they found a maximum of 24% decline in aqueous-phase extractable organofluorine  compared to influent and no significant differences between aqueous influent and effluent concentrations 

The six EPA regulated PFAS accounted for an average of 8 ± 8% of the extractable organofluorine  in the wastewater treatment plant effluent samples. PFOS and PFOA exceeded federal standards in 63% of the effluents, while the hazardous PFAS mixture standard was not exceeded in any effluent. The greatest exceedance at any facility was observed for PFOA (six times greater than the regulation). At that site, environmental dilution with contaminant-free water or drinking water treatment up to a factor of six would be needed to prevent downstream concentrations that exceed regulatory standards. This could be very problematic for wastewater treatment streams like UOSA which can during dry periods be a significant portion of the flow into the Occoquan Reservoir. Testing has found that public drinking water not only from the Occoquan Reservoir, but also in Newport News, Norfolk, Roanoke and Charlottesville exceed the EPA regulatory limits. This impacts 29% of Virginians. 

Chemical regulation in the United States typically considers risks associated with individual chemicals rather than the complex mixtures present in wastewater effluent or the environment. But the world has changed as more and more of the water we drink is either directly or indirectly recycled. This poses a challenge for regulating PFAS, pharmaceuticals, and other organofluorine compounds because there are potentially tens of thousands of these chemicals currently in use. Most organofluorine compounds lack analytical standards needed for routine environmental measurements and for evaluating toxicity. It may be time to reconsider the water treatment requirements for water reuse both direct and indirect.

Somethings Got to Give

Just after Christmas the Energy Information Administration (EIA) release an analysis that showed that: “In 2023, Virginia emerged as the top net electricity recipient among all U.S. states. … While 25 states produce more electricity than they consume, the excess is transmitted to other states. Virginia’s utilities received a net 50.1 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity from other states, making up 36% of its total electricity supply.”

For comparison California has 0ver 39 million residents and Virginia has 8.7 million residents. California generates net 19,279 thousand  MWh of electricity while Virginia generates net 9,078 thousand MWh.

 

For decades, utilities in California and Virginia have consumed more electricity than they produce. In 2023, power companies in California lost their long-held position to those in Virginia as receiving the most electricity from other states. Electricity generation has increased in both states, but interstate receipts have generally increased in Virginia over the past five years while they have decreased in California. Between 2019 and 2023, electricity receipts by Virginia utilities increased by 61% (19.0 million MWh) due primarily to the surging commercial-sector demand from data centers. 

Pennsylvania led the nation in exporting electricity, moving 83.4 million MWh across state borders, accounting for 26% of its total generation.” Pennsylvania and West Virginia have essentially been supplying the explosive growth in data center growth in the PJM region.

 As you can see in the charts below from the appendix of the Dominion Energy fall 2024 update to their Integrated Resource Plan ( IRP) , carbon intensity had been falling in for Virginia. The projected carbon intensity was not included in the diagram. However,  sooner or later, you run out of other people’s power to purchase and there is a projected sudden change in the generation mix for 2024. Buried in the Dominion Energy IRP released last fall is the fact that the carbon intensity of the Virginia electric grid was projected to have increased 37% from 2023 to 2024. Though Dominion’s IRP attributes the increase in carbon intensity to the increase in use of natural gas, that is not completely true. The generation mix changed from 2023 to 2024 to halve the purchased power and make up the difference using natural gas and coal generation.

PFAS and Fairfax Water Update

Fairfax Water gave an update on their work to ameliorate their PFAS problem in the Occoquan Reservoir to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPAs) new national drinking water standard PFAS chemicals. 

In April 2024, the EPA announced the final national primary drinking water standards for six poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Public water systems have five years (by 2029) to implement solutions that reduce these PFAS if monitoring shows that drinking water levels exceed the maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). Fairfax Water has stated that they will ensure their water meets these standards by the regulatory date.

image from Fairfax Water

Fairfax Water  supplies not only Fairfax, but parts of Loudoun and Prince William County as a water wholesaler to American Water and Prince William Service Authority . Fairfax Water participated in the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) Occurrence Study that was completed in 2021. It is important to point out that the practical quantitative limit was 4 ppt just at the proposed regulatory limit. Some of Fairfax Water’s results for PFOS and PFAS were above the MRL and the regulatory limit. The ones below cannot be quantified, they might be just below the quantitative limit or lower.

Prince William Water (then called the Prince William County Service Authority) also participated in a Virginia Department of Health (VDH) study to test for PFAS in water samples collected from the distribution systems. The Service Authority collected samples from its East and West systems and the results for the east system (which comes from the Occoquan Reservoir) were above the detection limit and ultimately the EPA MCL.

At the time that EPA finalized the primary drinking water standard, Fairfax Water said: “Our data shows that the PFNA, HFPO-DA (commonly known as GenX chemicals), PFHxS, and PFBS levels in our water are all below the MCLs and HI. PFOA and PFOS results for Potomac treated water are less than the MCL of4.0 parts per trillion (ppt). PFOA and PFOS results for the Griffith Water Treatment Plant, which treats water from the Occoquan Reservoir, are slightly above the MCL of 4.0 ppt. Fairfax Water is evaluating treatment processes to ensure that our water will meet these standards.”

Fairfax Water performed additional sampling and testing. Fairfax Water hired an independent lab to test their water Every sampling found elevated PFOA and PFOS at or near the MCL of 4.0 ppt. 

image from Fairfax Water

Now, Fairfax Water has made available the 2024 third quarter update of their work on PFAS and their conclusions. Based on the most recent quarterly running annual average (RAA), the Occoquan (Griffith Water Treatment Plant) will not comply with the EPA regulation for PFOA when it goes into effect in 2029. Compliance for PFOS is marginally below the regulatory limit. Additional treatment processes will be required to comply with regulations.

Sampling data for the Potomac River water supply indicate that the Corbalis Water Treatment Plant will comply with the PFAS regulations without additional treatment. So, Fairfax Water is moving ahead with designing a water treatment train to remove PFAS from the water drawn from the Occoquan Reservoir.

Fairfax Water estimates that it will cost $389 Million over next 6 years to comply with the EPA MCL by 2029.  This begins with studies of removal technology and bench testing which took place this past year. Next year they plan to have a pilot plant up and operational. Finally, the Design and Construction of plant scale PFAS Removal and Treatment should be completed by the end of 2029. Additional PFAS infrastructure may be required to support the new Luck quarry reservoir supply. In addition to the capital expenditures Fairfax Water expects to spend around $24 million per year in additional operating expenses forever. This is about one fifth of their current operating expenses.

The water in the Occoquan Reservoir comes from the Occoquan Watershed. Our water supplies are connected to each other and the land. Two thirds of the Occoquan Watershed that supplies the Occoquan Reservoir is in Prince William County. The former Rural Crescent allowed rainwater to flow gently over vegetation, feed the aquifers that provide water to the private wells and the Evergreen water system, but also feeds the tributaries to Bull Run and the Occoquan River assuring the base flow to the rivers and streams that feed the Reservoir.

The Upper Occoquan Service Authority, UOSA, the wastewater treatment plant also delivers 40 million/day of recycled water that originated in the Potomac River to the Occoquan Reservoir. Supplementing the supply. Keeping PFAS out of the source water is a real challenge when PFAS is in our diet and wastewater is reused in our drinking water supplies. To stay within the regulatory limit, Fairfax Water will have to identify the PFAS content in the various sources of water and can either mix them to minimize exposure or remove them.

Armed with $750,000 in new equipment for the purpose, the Occoquan Watershed Laboratory has been testing water samples from throughout the Occoquan watershed to determine where the PFAS in the reservoir is coming from to see if it is possible to address the problems at the sources at the expense of the polluters rather than the water customers. PFOA and PFOS were found above drinking water MCLs in multiple sampling locations at levels several times higher than the drinking water limit.

Image from Fairfax Water

Sampling has so far confirmed Industrial wastewater discharges to UOSA from Micron Semiconductor plant and from Freestate Farms. Also confirmed as a source of PFAS by sampling is the  Federal/Military in the Vint Hill area and  Vint Hill Farms. The old Vint Hill army base where the Fauquier Times reported that for the past several years, the U.S. Department of Defense has been monitoring PFAS contamination at Vint Hill that is believed to be tied to a former burn pit where soldiers practiced putting out fires with firefighting foam containing PFAS chemicals, which then leached into the soil and the groundwater. These sources have been confirmed by sampling.

There are also several potential sources that need to be further investigated: the non-Micron reclaimed water from UOSA, accidental releases from Manassas airport, Dulles Airport, the legacy CERCLA sites – IBM in Manassas and  Atlantic Research in Gainesville currently being redeveloped into data centers. PFAS in biosolids land applied under a permit in the watershed.

Occoquan stakeholders are engaged on the PFAS issue - UOSA, Fairfax County, Prince William County, Prince William Water, Virginia Tech (Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Lab), Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Virginia Department of Health (VDH)

Ongoing and emerging efforts to characterize PFAS include:

• Adding PFAS to existing groundwater monitoring sites
• Adding PFAS to the scope of the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Program
• Working with potential sources to understand past and/or ongoing use of PFAS
• Characterizing PFAS in industrial wastewater discharges to UOSA
• Monitoring other wastewater and industrial stormwater discharges for PFAS

2024 Electric Reliability Assessment

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has released its 2024 Electric Reliability Assessment. NERC is a not-for-profit international regulatory authority with the mission to assure the reliability of the bulk power system in North America. NERC develops and enforces Reliability Standards; annually assesses seasonal and long-term reliability; monitors the bulk power system through system awareness; and educates, trains, and certifies industry personnel.  I have taken a few excerpts from the just released report below.

In the 2024 report, NERC finds that most of the North American bulk power system faces mounting resource adequacy challenges over the next 10 years as surging demand growth continues and thermal power generators announce plans for retirement.

New solar PV, battery, and hybrid resources continue to flood interconnection queues, but completion rates are lagging behind the need for new generation. Furthermore, the performance of these replacement resources is more variable and weather dependent than the generators they are replacing.

As a result, less overall capacity (dispatchable capacity in particular) is being added to the system than is needed to meet future demand. The trends point to critical reliability challenges facing the power industry: satisfying escalating energy growth, managing generator retirements, and accelerating resource and transmission development.

In the figure below areas categorized as High Risk (red) do not meet electricity reserve and adequacy criteria in the next five years. High-risk areas (red) are likely to experience a shortfall in electricity supplies at the peak of an average summer or winter season. Extreme weather, producing wide-area heat waves or deep-freeze events will pose an even greater threat to reliability. Elevated-Risk areas (orange) currently meet resource adequacy criteria, but analysis indicates that extreme weather conditions are likely to cause a shortfall in area reserves. Normal-Risk areas (turquoise) are expected to have sufficient resources under a broad range of assessed conditions.

New generation/ resource additions continue at a rapid pace, but fell short of industry’s projections from the previous report. Only batteries,  added more nameplate capacity than was reported in development last year.  Natural-gas-fired generators are an essential part of the bulk power system. They can ramp up and down to balance a more variable resource mix and are a dispatchable electricity supply for winter and times when wind and solar resources are less capable of providing power. Natural gas pipeline capacity additions over the past seven years are trending downward, and some areas could experience insufficient pipeline capacity for electric generation during peak periods.

Electricity peak demand forecasts over the 10-year assessment period continue to climb; demand growth is now higher than at any point in the past two decades. Increasing amounts of large commercial and industrial loads are connecting rapidly to the bulk power system. The size and speed with which data centers (including crypto and AI) can be constructed and connect to the grid has no historic precedent. This presents unique challenges for demand forecasting and planning for system behavior. Additionally, the continued adoption of electric vehicles and heat pumps is a substantial driver for demand.

Our region is PJM and we face challenges from the explosive growth in data center demand and adoption of electric vehicles and heat pumps.  PJM’s projections for generator additions in 2025 and 2026 are scaled back dramatically from the 2023 forecasts while demand forecasts continue to rise. The upward trend in demand growth and downward trend in resource additions create resource adequacy and system planning challenges for PJM as it manages generator deactivation requests from the aging fossil and nuclear fleet.

PFAS in Small Mouth Bass

 Blazer, V.S., Walsh, H.L., Smith, C.R. et al. Tissue distribution and temporal and spatial assessment of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) in the mid-Atlantic United States. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 59302–59319 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-35097-6

The article below is to a large extent excerpted from the research paper cited above and the USGS press release.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) do not occur in nature, they are an entirely synthetic substance. Yet, most people in the United States have been exposed to PFAS, and have PFAS in their blood, especially perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). 

There are thousands of PFAS chemicals, and they are found in many different consumer, commercial, and industrial products. Various PFAS chemicals have been widely used for over 80 years mainly for their ability to repel oil, grease, water, and heat. PFOS and PFOA found in Scotch Guard and in Teflon and traditional Aqueous Film-Forming Foam (AFFF) - the foam used to fight aviation and other chemical fires -were the first to become widely commercially successful.

PFAS are called “forever chemicals” as they do not easily breakdown, and so build up in the environment and in tissues, apparently both human and animal. Human exposure to PFAS has been linked to health issues, such as kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disease, liver damage, developmental toxicity, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, and immune dysfunction. However, much less is known about the effects of PFAS on fish health and fish populations.

Fish and other aquatic organisms can ingest PFAS from water, and diet.  In 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with state natural resource agencies in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, began monitoring smallmouth bass (SMB, Micropterus dolomieu) in response to fish mortalities, numerous types of skin lesions, intersex, and other signs of endocrine disruption and population declines (Blazer et al. 2007, 2010, 2020; Smith et al. 2015; Walsh et al. 2018, 2022; Keplinger et al. 2022). A suite of biological indicators and monthly surface water samples for analyses of pesticides, hormones, phytoestrogens, and pharmaceuticals were monitored at four sites (two in the Potomac River, Maryland, and West Virginia and two in the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania).

Smallmouth bass are an economically important sportfish that have experienced disease outbreaks and populations declines in numerous Chesapeake Bay watersheds. PFAS may have adverse health impacts on smallmouth bass. Therefore, the goal of this study was to evaluate the concentration of PFAS in smallmouth bass tissue samples.

Adult smallmouth Bass were collected at ten sites between 2014 and 2021 by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD DNR), Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PA FBC), Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) and West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (WV DNR). 

PFAS were not part of the analyte list; however, the researchers stored and archived the  plasma from four long-term monitoring sites. Four PFAS (PFOS, PFDA, PFUnA, PFDoA) were detected in every smallmouth bass plasma sample, and concentrations of PFOS were considerably higher than the other three compounds.

The sampled sites represented some area of urban, agricultural, and forested lands in and around the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The highest total plasma concentrations of PFAS were found in smallmouth bass collected from two sites. These two sites had the highest percentage of developed land and the greatest number of EPA-identified sources of PFAS (including military installations and airports). Intermediate PFAS concentrations were found at sites with agricultural land. The lowest PFAS concentrations were found at sites with the highest percentage of forested land.

The with the lowest concentrations of PFOS and total PFAS had the largest drainage areas (3150.6 to 2207.7 sq km), the lowest developed land cover (3.2–4.5%), moderate to low agricultural land cover, and low number of PFAS facilities.

PFAS were detected in the plasma of smallmouth bass at all sites, including sites with a low percentage of developed land and sites with a low number of PFAS sources. This suggests that PFAS may be widespread in Chesapeake Bay waters and in smallmouth bass.

Developed and agricultural land may be associated with PFAS in surface water, land application of biosolids and/or the food chain.

PFAS concentrations were low in the muscle tissue of smallmouth bass, even in fish that had high plasma concentrations. The low concentration of PFAS in muscles suggests a minimal risk of human exposure to PFAS from eating smallmouth bass.

Concentrations measured in blood and other organs may be associated with health effects observed in smallmouth bass populations and require further study.