We recently reported that a well that supplies drinking water to the east side of Waverly has elevated levels of “forever chemicals”, which build up in the human body and can be harmful. The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that they plan to weaken limits on forever chemicals in drinking water. PFAS, as they are called, are man-made chemicals that do not easily break down in nature. They have a history of causing cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and babies being born with low birth weight. The Biden Administration set a standard of a safe level of PFAS at 4 parts per trillion or below. The two chemicals that make up PFAS were measured at 6.3 and 15 parts per trillion in the Waverly well. Health advocates applauded the Biden era limits but water utilities sued saying that the treatment systems were expensive. The utilities say that customers will end up paying more for water and it will be worst for small communities. However, the Biden Administration set aside $9 billion in their infrastructure bill just for dealing with PFAS and utilities have won multibillion dollar settlements against PFAS polluters. It is unclear at this time what, exactly, this means for Waverly and the well supplying drinking water to the east side of town.
