{"id":616793,"date":"2026-06-02T09:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T09:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/616793\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T09:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T09:55:12","slug":"it-has-the-highest-levels-of-toxic-pfas-in-drinking-water-in-scotland-but-how-did-this-remote-island-become-awash-with-forever-chemicals-pfas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/616793\/","title":{"rendered":"It has the highest levels of toxic Pfas in drinking water in Scotland. But how did this remote island become awash with forever chemicals? | Pfas"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the wind picks up on Fair Isle, Britain\u2019s most remote inhabited island, puffs of seafoam start to drift across fields like tumbleweed. The pale yellow blobs are ubiquitous enough to hold their own place in the island\u2019s mythology: known as the butter churned by a local troll, Lukki Minni<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Atlantic gets going, foam covers the whole island,\u201d says Tommy Hyndman, an artist who moved to the Fair Isle from upstate New York two decades ago. \u201cYour windows get caked and your plants all die from the salt.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as a familiar feature of rough weather, scientists now think seafoam and seaspray might hold the answer to a Fair Isle mystery. In 2024, utility data revealed that the wild outpost known for knitting and rare birds has higher levels <\/a>of toxic Pfas \u2013 \u201cforever chemicals<\/a>\u201d \u2013 than any other public drinking water in Scotland, despite there being no obvious industrial sources on the island.<\/p>\n

The Guardian obtained readings for the individual Pfas<\/a> behind that record, as well as documents from Fair Isle\u2019s airstrip and community fire station. Half a dozen scientists \u2013 from Stockholm to Texas, by way of Liverpool and Aberdeen \u2013 reviewed the Guardian\u2019s water data and agreed that Fair Isle\u2019s forever-chemical fingerprint matched the mix of individual Pfas that probably arrived in seaspray and foam.<\/p>\n

Pfas are often found near factories<\/a>, fire stations<\/a>, military bases<\/a> and airports<\/a>. Now scientists are finding them in remote coastal areas \u2013 not from any individual source but, they think, carried thousands of miles in seaspray and foam<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All Scotland\u2019s public drinking water remains below official Pfas thresholds for safe consumption. But scientists say the data from Fair Isle and other coastal areas represents an alarming indication of our mark on the world\u2019s seas, and of how ill-equipped the UK\u2019s current monitoring system is to record its accumulation.<\/p>\n

Foam in the waters around Fair Isle\u2019s southern coast. Photograph: Daniel Shailer<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think of the ocean as the ultimate sink: the only really effective way to remove persistent pollutants,\u201d says Bo Sha, an environmental chemist at Stockholm University who began researching how seaspray can collect and transport Pfas over vast distances almost a decade ago. \u201cBut with Pfas it\u2019s like a pump that keeps pushing chemicals to the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markOnce airborne in bubbles or spray, the chemicals can then travel hundreds of kilometres in daysBo Sha, environmental chemist<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because, unlike other persistent pollutants such as PCBs<\/a> and DDT<\/a>, Pfas are highly surface active: attracted to the interface between water and air. A bubble travelling through seawater \u201charvests\u201d Pfas towards it, Sha says, and in any given sample of seawater the seafoam floating above it would be expected to contain more Pfas than the water itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce airborne in bubbles or spray, the chemicals can then travel hundreds of kilometres in days,\u201d says Sha. Pfas used far away could, once in the ocean, accumulate in Fair Isle \u2013 in such high proportions because the island is often exposed to stormy seaspray and is so small.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Scottish Water<\/a> suggested a fire at the island\u2019s bird observatory in 2019 and fire-fighting foam at the small airstrip could be responsible for the high readings. Records from the fire show that no foam was used to extinguish the blaze, just seawater, and the National Trust for Scotland says it uses only a Pfas-free foam at the airport.<\/p>\n

Seafoam on the beach during gale force winds at Sandwood Bay, Sutherland, Scotland. Photograph: Ashley Cooper pics\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Fair Isle is not unique. Across Scotland, remote lochs from Orkney to the Western Isles<\/a> would fail a proposed EU threshold for safe environmental levels of Pfas<\/a>. On the other side of the North Sea, recent Danish studies have found Pfas accumulating in groundwater<\/a> and lichens near the coast from seaspray and foam. Last year, scientists found Pfas<\/a> had blown against the grain of prevailing ocean currents into Antarctic seabirds <\/a>living in some of the most remote parts of the world.<\/p>\n

Fair Islanders shared mixed reactions to the possible source of the chemicals. Kathy Coull, a traditional knitter and textile-maker, has been filtering her water each night since Pfas results were first published in 2024<\/a>. Now she wants Scottish Water to do more to address what she calls \u201calarming\u201d pollution at the island\u2019s treatment facility.<\/p>\n

Knitter and textile-maker Kathy Coull. Photograph: Daniel Shailer<\/p>\n

\u201cWater is one thing you can\u2019t live without. To actively ingest something that\u2019s not particularly good for you \u2013 it just makes sense to filter it out,\u201d she says, adding that given the island\u2019s levels she would support a programme of blood testing among local people. \u201cNobody wants to highlight it because of the negative effect it could have on tourism. But if we\u2019ve got these high levels, do a trial on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dave Brackenbury, a retired engineer living at the island\u2019s southern lighthouse, says he is \u201csceptical\u201d about the dangers of Pfas, but that the Scottish environment protection agency (Sepa) should be monitoring Fair Isle more closely.<\/p>\n

Sepa has not published any Pfas data since 2018, and has yet to release analysis from a programme of testing in 2025 despite promising those results would be available before the end of the year. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing you can do about it but keep an eye on it,\u201d says Brackenbury. \u201cSepa are a disappointment.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Sepa spokesperson says the agency is still undergoing \u201cvalidation and verification checks\u201d for that data, adding that it does not monitor airborne Pfas. This is in line with the rest of the UK, according to Andrew Sweetman, an environmental chemist at Lancaster University who helps run the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs\u2019 (Defra) official air monitoring network.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no organised monitoring for Pfas in air; I\u2019m hoping this year that will change,\u201d says Sweetman, who plans to add airborne Pfas monitors into some of the network. Few of Defra\u2019s sites were chosen in the 1990s with the oceans in mind. Only one, on the north coast of Norfolk, could begin regularly measuring levels of Pfas coming to the coast in seaspray.<\/p>\n

Dave Brackenbury is \u2018sceptical\u2019 about the dangers of Pfas but wants closer monitoring. Photograph: Daniel Shailer<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to think of a quick and dirty way of collecting that data,\u201d Sweetman says. \u201cAnd if you drew a straight line from that site there\u2019s nothing between it and the Arctic Circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Understanding exactly how much Pfas is arriving in seaspray on UK coastlines, is still only one part of the puzzle, he adds. \u201cThe question is then: does that matter, and what can you do? Because it\u2019s too late \u2013 there are no pristine parts of our environment any more, anywhere. We have contaminated just about everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December the UK government promised to prioritise \u201cwork on a long-term plan\u201d. Kimo, an environmental network of local authorities in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK, called this \u201cinadequate\u201d and published its own plan<\/a>. Identify coastal areas at risk of seaspray, it told local governments, and start moving livestock, farms and wells inland.<\/p>\n

Sitting in the old laird\u2019s house on Fair Isle, Hyndman is only a few hundred metres away from the coast. He is not surprised that pollution could arrive somewhere so remote; he sees plastic wash up most days. Still, for someone who moved to Fair Isle \u201cto get away from it all\u201d, the reach of our impact on the natural world has made an impression.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all live within the environment, and that\u2019s being attacked by pollution wherever you are,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s the world we live in and it\u2019s scary as shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seafoam in a field in Shetland \u2013 studies have found Pfas accumulating in groundwater and lichens near the coast from seaspray and foam. Photograph: Daniel Shailer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the wind picks up on Fair Isle, Britain\u2019s most remote inhabited island, puffs of seafoam start to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-616793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}