called PFAS<\/a>, break down slowly and can build up in people, animals, and the environment over time.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe report shows PFAS levels six times over the federal limit at the University of South Florida and 4.3 times over the limit in New Port Richey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Marie Bourgeois is a professor and toxicologist at the University of South Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t think of a single municipal water system in the United States that doesn\u2019t have PFAS in it, and while it is always going to be a concern to find chemicals of any kind in either surface water or groundwater or chemicals that don\u2019t belong there, we are still trying to figure out what the potential human health impact is of PFAS exposure,\u201d Bourgeois told WMNF.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said research suggests negative effects on humans, but more testing needs to be done.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to fund the research that will actually let us determine how big a hazard this has the potential to be for human health,\u201d Bourgeois said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, Bourgeois said limits are set extremely low to protect the most vulnerable members of the population.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo simply being exposed to six times as much does not necessarily mean they\u2019re in six times the amount of danger, or they\u2019re likely to suffer six times the amount of effects,\u201d Bourgeois said.<\/p>\n
This May, the Environmental Protection Agency worked to roll back its own limits on certain PFAS chemicals in water.<\/p>\n
The EPA says many PFAS are found in the blood of people and animals around the globe, and are present at low levels in a variety of food products and in the environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PFAS in water illustration by zimmytws via iStock for WMNF News. Listen: A report from USA Today shows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13667,135,137,136,4103],"class_list":{"0":"post-19445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-pfas","9":"tag-tampa","10":"tag-tampa-headlines","11":"tag-tampa-news","12":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"PFAS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/PFAS-in-water-by-zimmytws-via-iStock-for-WMNF-News.jpg\")