An Introduction to the Environmental and Health Risks of Forever Chemicals, with Caroline Noblet

Notable Quotes

• Exposure to forever chemicals can negatively affect human health: “As with many contaminants, the level and length of exposure is important for health outcomes. Some health impacts that have been documented include reproductive issues for women; increased risk of certain cancers; lowering the body’s immune system, including vaccine response; high levels of cholesterol; and interference with human-body hormones.” (5:34)
• New federal regulations mandate testing for PFAS chemicals: “The primary objective of these rules [from the US Environmental Protection Agency] is to provide guidance about what level of PFAS in drinking water is ‘safe’ … As we learn about PFAS, safe exposure levels are going to need to shift as we take new information into consideration. These new … rules focus on six common PFAS chemicals, and the rules mandate that public drinking-water systems must test for these PFAS and make sure that the drinking water being provided does not exceed the amount of PFAS outlined in these rules.” (8:29)
• Government responses to forever chemicals are not equitable across communities: “It’s really important to talk about environmental justice when we think about PFAS … Some communities are already PFAS free through luck or through existing spending, while others are going to need to scramble to start working to address this issue, applying for grants or getting that federal funding trickling down to them … We might see people making housing choices that lower property values in areas that are already struggling, because they’re trying to avoid PFAS … There’s an environmental justice component of this and we need to keep that on our radar.” (21:22)

Top of the Stack

• Dark Waters film
• Natural Capital by Dieter Helm

The Full Transcript

Daniel Raimi: Hello, and welcome to Resources Radio, a weekly podcast from Resources for the Future. I'm your host, Daniel Raimi. Today, we are talking with Dr. Caroline Noblet, associate professor in the School of Economics at the University of Maine. Caroline is, among other things, an expert on PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are increasingly becoming a concern for environmental and health researchers.

I'll ask Caroline to help us understand how PFAS, which are sometimes called forever chemicals, enter the environment; how they wind up in people; and what some of the health effects might be. We'll also talk about new federal regulations that seek to reduce exposure to PFAS, how much they might cost, and who could end up bearing those costs.

I learned a ton in today's episode, and I'm sure you will, too, so stay with us.

Caroline Noblet from the University of Maine, welcome to Resources Radio.

Caroline Noblet: Thank you very much for having me.

Daniel Raimi: We are delighted to have you. I'm really excited for this topic, because it's something that I know very little about, and I think a lot of our listeners have heard about PFAS but maybe don't know a whole lot about it. Today is our PFAS 101 episode. Before we dive into the substance, we always ask our guests how they got interested in environmental issues, whether that interest began early in life or later on.

Caroline Noblet: Absolutely early in life for me. I grew up in Maine, and if you've ever been to Maine, you know that we are just surrounded by special places. I particularly love our coastal and ocean areas. My parents would be more than happy to tell you about how I was forever falling into tide pools regardless of what season it was in Maine. I was pretty convinced I wanted to be a dolphin trainer when I grew up, but at my university, everyone needs to take an economics class.

During the course, we learned about how economics helps us understand some of the root causes and potential solutions for environmental issues. I was totally hooked. I dove into environmental economics instead of tide pools, but the fact that I was able to come home to Maine and work with Maine people every day to make choices about our natural resources is just amazing and something that younger me could probably only dream of.

Daniel Raimi: That's super cool. Thank you again for coming onto the show. Let's dive right in. PFAS—what are they and what types of products are they found in?

Caroline Noblet: PFAS is an acronym for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. That is a name for a group of man-made chemicals with really strong carbon and fluorine bonds; essentially these chemicals make products nonstick. If you have nonstick pans or rugs that resist stains or rain gear that resist water, these likely contain PFAS. PFAS have been found in everything from dental floss to popcorn bags and paint.

The chemical bond between carbon and fluoride is one of the strongest. The result is these chemicals do not break down over time and they stay in our bodies and our environment. You'll see some of the folks in the media calling them forever chemicals to reflect this very unfortunate longevity.

Daniel Raimi: That's interesting. I've read that they also are found in some other industrial products in uses like firefighting foam, and sometimes they end up being found at water facilities and in animals, too. How do they wind up in those places?

Caroline Noblet: There are a number of different pathways for people to be exposed to PFAS and find themselves in the same space with it. As we mentioned, PFAS is in a lot of products, and it's used in creating a lot of products. We would expect to find PFAS at some of these manufacturing sites and in their associated waste. As consumers, we've been using these nonstick products and PFAS gets into our bodies and our waste system. Many states then permit the spreading of wastewater or biosolids onto farm fields as fertilizer, which introduces PFAS into the soil and water. Unfortunately, this introduction means that PFAS is getting into our food system and our drinking water.

When we throw away these PFAS products into landfills, the PFAS may leach into our environment. As you noted, firefighting foam is another source of PFAS, so that's another opportunity for it to leach into soil and water. All of these land and water-based sources of PFAS that we just talked about can be aerosolized, so PFAS can be in air particles, as well. Folks might recall that PFAS was even found on Mount Everest. Unfortunately, there's a lot of ways that people can be exposed to PFAS.

Daniel Raimi: How much do we know about the health effects of ingesting PFAS at different levels and how it accumulates and stays in the body?

Caroline Noblet: There's some really strong research out there about the health effects of PFAS, but to be honest, researchers are still learning more every day. As with many contaminants, the level and length of exposure is important for health outcomes. Some health impacts that have been documented include reproductive issues for women; increased risk of certain cancers; lowering the body's immune system, including vaccine response; high levels of cholesterol; and interference with human-body hormones. As we talk about all this, I do think it's really important to talk about the fact that as we improve our scientific knowledge about PFAS, we're probably going to need to adjust this list of health impacts and consider what safe exposure levels are to avoid these negative outcomes.

Daniel Raimi: It sounds like they're all over the place, right? Is it fair to say that we are all exposed to PFAS? Is it fair to say that we're all adjusting it to some degree?

Caroline Noblet: Yeah, I think that we could look at some of the studies that show something like 90 percent of people in the world have some detectable level of PFAS in their body.

Daniel Raimi: Do we know if that's very different in higher-income countries versus lower-income countries?

Caroline Noblet: That's a great question. I don't know a lot about that. I know that there are certain occupations that people might have where they would be exposed to PFAS more, and so we might expect them to have higher levels. There are certain geographic areas within, for example, the United States, where the way PFAS has been handled in the past has led to more or less PFAS exposure.

Daniel Raimi: That's interesting. One more background question and then I want to ask you about some policy issues, which is about the detection itself. Is it hard to detect PFAS? Are they found in very low concentrations? Is that part of the problem here, or is it that we are only now understanding the extent of their use and the extent of the exposure that people are experiencing?

Caroline Noblet: I think it's a little bit of both. I think that there are a lot of different types of PFAS; there's hundreds, possibly even thousands of chemicals that could be characterized as PFAS. I think we're learning to be looking for those where maybe we weren't looking before. I mentioned that some states had permitted the spreading of wastewater onto farm fields, and they certainly tested that wastewater for things that we knew about at the time. We just didn't know about PFAS, or we didn't recognize it for what it is now. I think that's a big part of the problem.

Daniel Raimi: That's really interesting. Let's talk a little bit about public policy now. As some listeners might know, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently finalized a set of rules that seek to regulate PFAS with a few different mechanisms. Can you give us a high-level overview of what those rules do?

Caroline Noblet: Sure. The primary objective of these rules is to provide guidance about what level of PFAS in drinking water is "safe." As I mentioned before, as we learn about PFAS, safe exposure levels are going to need to shift as we take new information into consideration. These new EPA rules focus on six common PFAS chemicals, and the rules mandate that public drinking-water systems must test for these PFAS and make sure that the drinking water being provided does not exceed the amount of PFAS outlined in these rules. These are called Maximum Contaminant Level goals, or MCLs, and public water systems have until 2029 to comply with the new rules.

I will also note for listeners that even before these national standards came out, many states had rules in effect. Your community may already have been monitoring and addressing PFAS in public drinking water.

I also want to make a related comment about standards related to safety and PFAS. These EPA rules about PFAS and drinking water are really important, but I also think it's important to note that the rules for safe amounts in other parts of our life are still in development. For example, some of my colleagues here at the University of Maine are doing really important work to understand what types of vegetable crops are more likely to pull in PFAS from their surrounding environment as they're being grown.

As we learn more, we can likely expect some changing regulations related to food, too. We know that our food may come from nonagricultural sources, so many states are starting to look at freshwater fish and game species, because PFAS may bioaccumulate or build up in the animal which people then consume. There's a lot of work happening to understand PFAS in our environment, and certainly, I would encourage people to seek resources from entities that they trust to continue learning more. I think these EPA drinking-water rules are a fantastic start.

Daniel Raimi: We're going to focus on the drinking-water part of the rules, but there are a couple other elements, too, regarding how companies need to dispose of PFAS that they might be using today and also the liability that companies might have for PFAS that they have released in previous years. One other point that you made that I just wanted to follow up on is on food packaging. We're focused on EPA rules today, but I was also reading about the Food and Drug Administration and some of the rules that it's made recently, which seek to limit the use of PFAS in food packaging, like fast food wrappers, pizza boxes, or things like that. Is that something you've looked at?

Caroline Noblet: We're starting that process, because part of what we're trying to understand is not only how extensive the PFAS is in a lot of these different sources, but also how does PFAS being in those particular sources then contribute to PFAS going further? For example, if people compost, in the past, we might have been able to compost some of those containers, but in introducing those containers that include PFAS into our compost and then spreading those on our gardens, we're introducing PFAS into that, as well. There's a lot to think about on that.

Daniel Raimi: I hadn't thought about that pathway. That reminds me of Elizabeth Kolbert's book, Under A White Sky, which is about the environmental problems that people create by trying to solve environmental problems.

Caroline Noblet: It's very complicated, for sure.

Daniel Raimi: Let's get back to the drinking-water systems. I've read a little bit about these new rules. It seems like, for some of these systems, it might be really expensive to eliminate all of the types of PFAS from their water supplies. How much do we know about how widespread PFAS is in US public drinking-water supplies, and how costly might it be for the municipal utilities that operate them to meet these new standards?

Caroline Noblet: The EPA estimates that 5 to 10 percent of public drinking-water systems that would be subject to these new rules will need to take action to reduce PFAS in their systems. I happened to speak with the director of the public drinking-water system for the town I live in, and I learned that even within my state, there's substantial variation. Some towns right next to each other have very different levels of PFAS or none at all. As we start to think about the cost, it also appears that certain types of PFAS may be easier to remove than others. These drinking-water rules look at six common PFAS, but not all six of them are the same in terms of ease of removal, which will influence the cost.

There are a few different technologies available. I'll give you some of the ones that my engineering friends have told me about: activated carbon absorption, ion-exchange resins, and high-pressure membranes. I'm not an engineer, so I won't pretend to talk about which is the right choice for different drinking-water systems depending on the type of PFAS they have. I will say the EPA estimates that the cost of compliance with the new rules is $1.5 billion. I'll also note, of course, that while we're focused on these rules about public drinking-water supply, there are lots of people who rely on private wells for their drinking water. They can certainly turn to these new rules for guidance about levels in terms of safety, but they're going to have to make their own choices about how to address that if they have PFAS in their well water.

Daniel Raimi: I'm actually a little bit surprised by the number you just mentioned—the $1.5 billion, if I heard you correctly. It's actually a little bit lower than I would've expected. That's partly because, in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was passed a couple of years ago, I believe that there's $9 billion in that law dedicated to addressing PFAS specifically. Do you think that $1.5 billion is a firm number, or could it be changing over time?

Caroline Noblet: I definitely think it can change over time. The reason I think that is because there are some places who have already been doing a lot of testing for PFAS and may already be spending money to address PFAS in their systems. There may be a lot of other places that have never tested for PFAS before, so they may be unaware of what type of PFAS they have and what they're going to need to do to bring it down to those acceptable levels. I do think that number can likely shift.

Daniel Raimi: Probably in the upward direction, rather than the downward direction, right?

Caroline Noblet: Sadly, I do see that as likely, but I don't have a great sense of how widespread existing testing and treatment for PFAS is in US public drinking water.

Daniel Raimi: Now I'm going to ask you to put on your economist hat for a moment. Economists are trained to think about the benefits and costs of different regulations, and, of course, the distribution of those benefits and costs. On the benefits and costs, when you put your economics hat on, what are the types of issues that frame your thinking around the regulation of PFAS both today and the years ahead?

Caroline Noblet: Many things come to mind. First, we had previously talked about the cost that communities may face in meeting the new drinking-water standards. I think a big question is, Who will pay for this? There is money, as you mentioned, from the federal government associated with these new rules. I do think that citizens might be willing to pay to mitigate PFAS in their communities, but they might also think that it's someone else's responsibility. These companies that used PFAS—is it their responsibility?

Some of the work that I've been doing looks at the relationship between where people place blame for this PFAS issue and their willingness to contribute toward addressing the problem. In the communities where drinking water has PFAS, as work is done to meet these standards, I ask the question about what might happen to housing prices. We might see people take action to move towns if they feel like their community isn't addressing PFAS fast enough in their public drinking water. We might also see people want to take action in their own homes, being willing to pay for filters at that home level.

From an economics perspective, I would ask, What's going to happen to that water filter market? I think a lot about how consumers and citizens might respond from a purchasing of product perspective. There's some really early work looking at whether people are on the search for labels that tell them if there is PFAS in a product or not. We've seen some companies proactively respond to that, indicating their products are PFAS free. I want to know, are consumers going to actively avoid PFAS products? As these replacement goods enter the market, what will those prices be?

I think about this extending to our food system, because in Maine, of course, we have a lot of agriculture. I wonder if people are going to be willing to pay a price premium for agricultural products that can confirm that there's no PFAS. I wonder if people are thinking about this issue when they're shopping for food. I also think about the cost of identifying and treating the health issues with PFAS exposure that we spoke about before, making that connection.

One other thing that I think about, and again, my bias is thinking about farms because of Maine; there is farmland in the United States that has PFAS contaminated waste that was spread on their fields, and they may never be able to produce food again, at least not with our current levels of knowledge and technology. What happens to these lands? What do we do with them? If we're taking that productive farmland out of production, what happens to the price of farmland that can produce food? There's really a lot to think about, but as an economist, those are a few of the things that I'm thinking about.

Daniel Raimi: There's so much in there. There's like 10 papers in what you just said.

Since you're doing research on people's perceptions on who should pay for cleanup, I'm curious if any headline results of that work come to mind that you want to share with us?

Caroline Noblet: We ended up trying to understand if people place blame on the companies that manufactured PFAS and input them into the products, or do they blame themselves for using these products across time? If we talk about that potential blame, does that change their willingness to pay?

We are seeing that people who thought that, because as a consumer they used PFAS themselves, they are more likely to be willing to contribute towards addressing the problem. The way we talk about PFAS is probably going to become really important when we start talking about trying to address the issue.

Daniel Raimi: Yeah, it's really interesting. It reminds me of climate change debates where people argue about who's responsible for climate change. Is it the consumers of fossil fuels or is it the producers of fossil fuels? We won't get into that today, but it sounds like a similar discussion.

I'm curious to ask you about the distribution of the benefits and the costs of regulating PFAS and trying to clean it up from our water system. You mentioned the town where you live earlier. In my town of Ann Arbor, I was looking into this, and it's a relatively high-income town. It's a wealthy town, and the city already has technologies in place to deal with PFAS and easily comply with these new EPA rules. But as you said, there are plenty of communities that won't be able to comply and will have to install costly mitigation systems.

I'm curious if there's an environmental justice issue here? Is it possible that the communities that are already dealing with challenges related to low income or other types of pollution might be disproportionately affected by having to try to clean up PFAS?

Caroline Noblet: I absolutely think it's really important to talk about environmental justice when we think about PFAS. There are many communities who are already struggling to have their existing tax base cover lots of different municipal costs. While there is $20 billion associated with the new public drinking-water regulations to help people cover it, and that's a strong step in the right direction, this links back to questions about what happens in the next few years.

Some communities are already PFAS free through luck or through existing spending, while others are going to need to scramble to start working to address this issue, applying for grants or getting that federal funding trickling down to them. Again, we might see people making housing choices that lower property values in areas that are already struggling, because they're trying to avoid PFAS. I definitely think that there's an environmental justice component of this and we need to keep that on our radar.

Daniel Raimi: Do we have any sense geographically of how exposure might vary? Are we more likely to see costly mitigation efforts in rural areas, urban areas, or areas near industrial manufacturing? Do we know anything about that yet?

Caroline Noblet: We're seeing a mix of a lot of different things. Rural areas appear to be impacted because of that spreading of wastewater onto farm fields. It's getting out to rural areas that you would not have expected to see it in. Some of the urban areas that might be colocated with manufacturing plants are also seeing PFAS—maybe different types of PFAS and different concentrations of PFAS. I think we're still learning about that, but I would be surprised if there were places that were, or a whole state that was, completely PFAS free.

Daniel Raimi: I've also read that these issues are showing up a lot near military bases and firefighting facilities because of the firefighting foam and some of the other military applications that PFAS has been used in.

Caroline Noblet: Absolutely. There was a really interesting conference that we hosted jointly with Michigan, and we looked at some of these issues and heartbreaking stories from people located near some of these facilities about what the impact has been on them.

Daniel Raimi: We've been talking about water systems primarily for the last few minutes. I'm curious now to ask you about the new rules that are in place for cleaning up existing PFAS contamination. We've talked about some of the places where it can be found, but I'm curious if you can say a little bit about who is likely to bear the costs of cleaning up existing contamination and how substantial might those costs be, if we even know at this point?

Caroline Noblet: That's something that has been really interesting, because different states have been moving at different paces in addressing this. There are some states, and I guess I'll proudly say that I think Maine is one of them, who have been very forward-thinking about this and have set aside state funding already to try and address some of the cleanup issues. There are certainly other states that maybe aren't as far along in thinking about this. I don't know if we have a good sense of how much it's going to cost to clean up PFAS, but I do know that people are at really different places in that process. I can only imagine that the costs will go up as we learn more.

Daniel Raimi: Do we know who's likely to bear those costs? Is it likely to be companies, municipalities—and by extension, taxpayers—or the federal government? Or is it uncertain at this point?

Caroline Noblet: My understanding is things are happening in different timeframes. In the short timeframe, especially those states that might be a little ahead of the curve, it is their taxpayers; it is citizens that are being asked to fund this. However, I know that Maine and other states are pursuing an active lawsuit against some of the manufacturing companies. In the longer term, we might see them have to accept some of the responsibility and some of the payment. Increasingly, we are seeing federal guidance like the drinking-water regulations that we've been talking about. With these new regulations comes new funding. In the mid to longer term, the federal government will also be chipping in on some of the costs, but just in the short term, I've seen a lot of it be on some of the citizens.

Daniel Raimi: Caroline, I've learned so much in this conversation, and I know our listeners have, too. I want to ask you one more question before we get to our Top of the Stack segment, which is about replacements for PFAS. How much can you tell us about what types of chemicals are going to replace PFAS? Nonstick cookware is really handy in a lot of situations. Firefighting foam is really important. Having non-grease pizza boxes is definitely not essential, but it's pretty handy. What are the alternatives that are out there, and do they also potentially pose new and different environmental or health harms?

Caroline Noblet: This is a really tricky one, because ultimately, my engineering and chemistry friends tell me that we need nonfluorinated compounds to replace PFAS; it's that really strong carbon-fluorine bond that's causing the problem, and the development of these types of chemicals are underway. We've also learned that there are some things that are called precursors. They have some of the components of PFAS and, under the right environment, they can become PFAS. I'm sure that researchers in this area are being really careful about trying to make sure that we don't just create a new version of PFAS that's going to be even more problematic. I know the research is happening, but I certainly haven't seen a lot of research about quantifying the costs associated with that development.

Daniel Raimi: Such an important topic, and so many uncertainties still out there. This has been a great introduction to PFAS, so thank you again for sharing your expertise.

Caroline Noblet: Thank you.

Daniel Raimi: I'd love to ask you now the same question we ask all of our guests, which is to recommend something that you've read or watched or heard that you think is awesome and that you think our audience might enjoy. So, Caroline, what's on the top of your literal or your metaphorical reading stack?

Caroline Noblet: I would say that for those looking for a movie on PFAS, much in the vein of Erin Brockovich, that showcases the human impact of PFAS exposure, they might enjoy the 2019 film Dark Waters. That's my PFAS-related recommendation.

As an environmental economist, I'm going to recommend a bit of an oldie, but a goodie, from 2015. Dieter Helm has a book called Natural Capital: Valuing The Planet. What I like about it is I think it does a nice job of showing why economists can be really valuable contributors to these important environmental conversations.

Daniel Raimi: Those are great recommendations. I remember Dark Waters coming out back in 2019; it stars Mark Ruffalo, among others, who's been a big-time activist on a variety of environmental issues including fracking and climate change.

Caroline Noblet: I show it to my classes every semester.

Daniel Raimi: Very cool. Well, one more time, Caroline Noblet from the University of Maine, thank you so much for joining us today on Resources Radio. It's been a fascinating conversation.

Caroline Noblet: Thank you so much.

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