ecoRI News reporters Frank Carini and Colleen Cronin take a stab at pronouncing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances as they discuss their latest reporting on how stricter EPA standards for PFAS, cancer-causing forever chemicals, are throwing some public drinking water supplies out of compliance.

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This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Colleen Cronin 

Welcome to the Blab Lab, a twice-monthly podcast from the reporters of ecoRI News, where we unpack the critical environmental issues facing southern New England.

I’m Reporter Colleen Cronin, and today I’m here with Frank Carini, senior columnist and reporter, to talk about per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, aka PFAS, aka forever chemicals.

These are a group of chemicals that are found in everything from firefighting foam to floor wax, and they’re called forever chemicals because scientists say they do not break down and they stay in your body over time. They’re linked to serious health effects, including several forms of cancer, fertility issues, and developmental delays in children. They’ve been in the news a lot lately and the topic of several recent ecoRI News articles. So today we’re going to talk about why.

Hey, Frank, how you doing?

Frank Carini 

I’m fine. How are you?

Colleen Cronin 

I had in the script, “insert wisecrack” when you spoke or, “insert wisecrack or defeatist phrase.”

Frank Carini 

I saw that in the outline. I didn’t want to play ….

Colleen Cronin 

… Play into my hands?

Frank Carini 

Yeah, maybe next time I will say something defeatist. Actually, I’m sure I’ll say something defeatist during this conversation.

Colleen Cronin 

Well, that’s okay. It is a tough topic, PFAS. Today, we’re probably going to do something a bit different than usual. Usually, I’m firing off a lot of questions at Frank. But he might also ask me some questions because Frank and reporter Rob Smith and I have all have written about PFAS. Recently, I wrote how Rhode Island has issued three no-drinking orders because of the most recent round of PFAS testing. Frank, you just wrote a column about the proliferation of PFAS. What inspired you to write that?

Frank Carini 

Your story covering the new round of testing and the three do-not-drink orders. That was part of it. But I find that — besides the burning and flooding of the world caused by the climate crisis and the burning of fossil fuels — the PFAS issue is major. We’ve had major problems with lead, DDT, asbestos, plastic even. But PFAS is going to blow all those out of the water in terms of … we’re just flooding the environment and ourselves with these nasty chemicals. You’d think we would have learned, like I said, from the campaigns about lead, tobacco, and secondhand smoke, but no, we just keep using it using it using it. Until who knows when it stops. So, I think it’s a major environmental and human-health problem.

Colleen Cronin 

I wrote my most recent story, which was about following up on some legislation that just went into effect July 1 … I had written a story last fall, kind of in preparation for these laws coming into effect. Back then, I spoke to a gentleman in Burrillville who was affected by the Oakland Village water system which had really high levels of PFAS contamination. And they had a no-drinking order for a while, and they finally ended up having to switch over to Harrisville water. The Oakland Village well was downhill from the fire department, which could have been the source of contamination, although it’s hard to prove. Firefighting foams are one of the biggest sources of PFAS.

Since I wrote that story, I sort of had been checking in with the state Department of Health ahead of July 1, because that’s when most public water systems in the state were mandated to test their systems again for PFAS. And we knew that some locations had PFAS. But there were three that had higher levels than 70 parts per trillion.

Frank Carini 

They were way higher. One was like 129. One was 160 or something, so it was more than double.

Colleen Cronin 

Two were the Ladd Center. And the other was Exeter Job Corps, both sort of in the same complex where the former Ladd Center school was — and then the other was Bruins Plastics, and they had higher than 70 parts per trillion. Then there were eight other locations that don’t have a no-drinking-water order, but tested higher than 20 parts per trillion, which is what the state is now mandating. The interesting thing is that they’re not much higher than 20 parts per trillion. But the ones that are above 70 are way above 70.

Frank Carini 

There are 11 systems in Rhode Island that tested above 20 parts per trillion.

Colleen Cronin 

Yes, 11 systems from this last round of testing tested above 20. And that didn’t include every system. It was most public water systems. And it doesn’t include private wells. So many people in Rhode Island have private wells, especially in the areas that tested really high. DEM is in the process of creating a perimeter around these high testing locations, and they’ll be testing some private wells in that area. I think what’s interesting about the Ladd Center and Exeter Job Corps’ high numbers is that it’s also near an aquifer and Queens River. It’s water; it’s traveling; it’s moving. These chemicals are not necessarily staying in place. So, who knows how many other private systems are affected, and it could be impacting the river as well. And other freshwater sources …

Frank Carini 

… and the animals that live in it.

And the funny thing is people will just go out and buy bottles of water. Well, I hate to tell you … public water systems are better regulated than systems that are filling up those water bottles.

Colleen Cronin 

I’ve written about the Water Keepers Alliance. They tested across the country … and they tested freshwater sources in Rhode Island and found that several had PFAS contamination. I spoke to an expert at the University of Rhode Island. And he was taking a look because the report is really comprehensive.

To swing it back to the Rhode Island Department of Health testing, you can go on their website, and they have it all listed. It’s an average of two test samples. And it’s also a combination of several types of PFAS they’re testing. It’s not like that’s one chemical. That’s the combination of lots of different PFAS chemicals that are in the water. And it’s an average of two samples. PFAS testing is difficult because there’s PFAS in everything. If you use the wrong pen, if you’re wearing a waterproof jacket of a certain kind, you can end up contaminating your samples with PFAS. So, you must take a confirmation sample.

But to bring it back to the Waterkeepers Alliance, they had a detailed report where they showed exactly which types of PFAS were tested for and found in the different places. And when I spoke to Rainer Lohman, a professor at URI, about it, he said what was interesting was that you could see there were chemicals that are banned now in the United States that were still being found in these environments decades later. And what keeps happening is that the United States will ban a certain type of PFAS, but then companies will make a small change in the chemical chains to make it similar but different enough so it’s no longer illegal.

Frank Carini 

So, we’re basically polluting our drinking water sources so we can have non-stick pans, and microwave popcorn — because it’s so hard to make popcorn on the stovetop. It’s just insanity.

Colleen Cronin 

I think that the most important use with the biggest impact is in firefighting foams. Again, just to preface, it’s difficult to prove where contamination has come from. If you look at Oakland Village, they were downhill from a fire station. If you look at the Ladd Center properties that tested high … there’s an explosive testing type facility the state has on that property. Military sites frequently have PFAs contamination and lots of other types of contamination because of the chemicals that they’re using. And then frequently near airports, there’s contamination because the FAA requires that the use aqueous site firefighting foam to douse oil fires, and that’s a use where it is certainly important and a safety issue. But then it’s also in everything else. It’s in food packaging. It’s in floor wax, which is there was in a couple of schools that tested higher than 20 parts per trillion. And when I asked the Department of Health why that was the case, they said it was maybe floor wax.

But there are still federal regulations that demand the use of them in certain situations. So, like when T.F. Green Airport does their training every year where they set something on fire where they’ve needed to use the PFAS firefighting foam, they’ll use an alternative. But if there was an actual emergency, they would have to use the PFAS foam. And maybe if I was in that plane, I would want that …

Frank Carini 

We just like jam toxic chemicals into everything. So we can satisfy profits for the chemical industry. We just allow all these compounds and all these chemicals and manufactured nastiness. Just dump it on the world, dump it on the public, and then we’ll hope nothing bad happens. And when it does, they’ll lie about their internal reports, they’ll lie about this — just like they did cigarettes — until they make a huge profit, then they’ll finally say, “Oh, that’s bad for you.”

Colleen Cronin 

Why do you think that history keeps repeating itself with this stuff?

Frank Carini 

Money.

Colleen Cronin 

And how do you feel like PFAS is different from cigarettes or DDT?

Frank Carini 

I think it’s a bigger problem. I think it’s worse.

Colleen Cronin 

Because it’s just pervasive?

Frank Carini 

Yeah, I this one’s going to kick us repeatedly in the ass. This PFAS problem.

Colleen Cronin 

Do you do anything personally to try to avoid them?

Frank Carini 

Yeah, I try to you know, it’s hard. It’s exhausting.

Colleen Cronin 

Do you feel like some of the pushback on the regulations is fair, because it is so pervasive, and it’s hard to eliminate?

Frank Carini  

No, I think we must be aggressive and get rid of this stuff. It’s gonna take a massive effort. If we just do a little bit here on the edges, nothing’s going to change. We caused a massive problem. Now it takes a massive solution to address it. Maybe we should sacrifice a little bit of convenience. So maybe my eggs stick to the pan a little bit. Or maybe I don’t need all these conveniences of life that come at a price. Maybe a little inconvenience wouldn’t be that bad.

Colleen Cronin 

And I don’t know if this is true or not. But frequently, when we’ve seen other types of hazard dumping or health impacts from environmental violations, it tends to disproportionately impact communities of color and marginalized communities.

Frank Carini 

Low-wealth communities.

Colleen Cronin 

There’s a lot of federal money coming down the pipeline for fixing systems that have PFAS; there are treatments that you can put on water systems also, sometimes you just end up switching to a different water system, because that’s cheaper. I think Rhode Island is in the process of applying for a grant would give access to funds to help disadvantaged communities to fix some of these issues. I want to look into whether or not these issues are more prevalent in certain communities. They’re definitely more prevalent near military bases and near areas where firefighting foam was used, but is there any sort of correlation with income or any other demographic?

Frank Carini 

I have no doubt you will find that.

Colleen Cronin 

Frank, what are you following? There are so many different angles to this story. There’s groundwater, there’s drinking water, there’s stuff in food and food packaging, there’s clothes, there’s all sorts of stuff. Is there a certain facet of this that you want to follow more?

Frank Carini 

Regulation. Or when are we going to really do something about it? The European Union does a better job. They have more rigorous testing.

Nothing’s gonna change. I hate to say that. But it’s going to take massive solutions. And we can’t do that for this. We can’t do it for climate change.

Colleen Cronin 

Well, we’ll still be following it, even if no one does do anything about it.

Thank you so much, Frank, for being on the podcast.

Thank you to our listeners for following along. We want to thank Vanessa Carlton for letting us use her song “Willow,” which you hear at the beginning and end of every episode. We also want to thank Roger Williams University and Professor Bernardo Motta for letting us use the recording studio. Thanks also to Jo, our editor for editing and mixing the episode. If you have any questions, tips, or podcast ideas, email me at [email protected]. Until next time, you can read more Rhody environmental news on our website.