Hawaii County\u2019s Department of Water Supply announced the first-time detection of low levels of Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid \u2013 or PFOS \u2014 in one of its wells during voluntary testing across the island.<\/p>\n
It is part of a group of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, also known as \u201cforever chemicals\u201d because they do not break down easily.<\/p>\n
County officials, however, said the test results, which ranged from 2.6 to 3.0 nanograms per liter, were within acceptable limits for safe drinking water set by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n
The PFOS were detected in Kulaimano Well A, which is one of two groundwater sources in the Pepeekeo Water System that supplies the community of Pepeekeo and the Hamakua Coast. The primary groundwater source, Kulaimano Well B, is currently undergoing repairs.<\/p>\n
The findings have been reported to the Hawaii Department of Health as required by law.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur customers\u2019 safety is our top priority,\u201d said Keith Okamoto, DWS Manager-Chief Engineer in a news release. \u201cAlthough the new federal compliance regulations do not take effect for a couple of years, we did not want to wait to act. We are proactively sampling active drinking water sources across the island, over 60 locations, by the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Okamoto added that the drinking water DWS provides meets all federal and state drinking water standards and is safe to use and drink.<\/p>\n
According to the EPA, PFAS are a group of man-made chemicals used since the 1940s in consumer products such as food packaging, carpets, cookware and other items designed to be waterproof, stain-resistant or nonstick.<\/p>\n
They are concerning due to their links to adverse health outcomes in humans and animals, especially at high concentrations or with long-term exposure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawaii County\u2019s Department of Water Supply announced the first-time detection of low levels of Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid \u2013 or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,25390,97,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-228624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-hawaii-island","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}