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Sydney Morning Herald

PFAS: New forever chemicals found in Sydney Water

In 2018, Buckley chaired the expert health panel for PFAS for the Australian government. He told the webinar he had looked over the state of research since then, and 'not much' had changed. Loading Dr Nicholas Chartres, a senior research fellow in the school of pharmacy at the University of Sydney, told this masthead it would have been most appropriate for the NSW Health webinar to present the findings of the US Environmental Protection Agency and NASEM reviews alongside the IARC evaluations. 'Government advice should not rely on individual experts, but rather rigorous, transparent reviews that reflect the most current science, when available,' he said. NASEM took a similar approach to the Australian panel in 2018, Chartres said, but was more rigorous and up to date, taking in the 139 human studies that had been published since then. A NSW Health spokesperson said it had convened an expert panel to report to the chief health officer on a range of clinical matters relating to PFAS. The webinar was to support local clinicians to provide information and give them a chance to share case studies and ask questions, the spokesperson said. STOP PFAS convener Jon Dee in Leura. Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong Jon Dee, from Blue Mountains community group STOP PFAS, said: 'The PFAS in our drinking water was an Erin Brockovich-level contamination, yet NSW Health is downplaying this and ignoring a huge amount of international evidence about PFAS health risks.' Blood donations Buckley told the webinar about a third of PFAS in a human body would be in the blood stream, and if individuals were concerned about their PFAS levels and wanted to be proactive in lowering it, they could consider donating blood. 'You'd be getting rid of 3 per cent of your PFAS in your body every time you gave 500ml of blood,' Buckley said. Loading 'If you quietly said 'you're welcome to give blood and you will get rid of 3 per cent of the PFAS in your body every time you give blood', I actually think it's not a bad idea.' A randomised clinical trial of 285 Victorian firefighters in 2019 found donating blood lowered PFAS levels, while the PFAS Health Study at the Australian National University has identified menstruation as one of the reasons why PFAS levels are lower in Australian women than men at population level. Jones told the webinar she disagreed with blood donation to lower PFAS because it could cause persistent anaemia and there was 'no proven causality between PFASes and adverse health effects'. Buckley responded that it was 'a futile exercise in getting rid of PFAS at one level – you're not expecting health benefits', but as long as it was in the guidelines for blood donation, he did not see any huge problems with it. Sydney tap water Residents in the Blue Mountains have been exposed to high levels of PFAS, especially PFOS from firefighting foam, in drinking water for at least 17 years and possibly up to 32 years. Water with PFAS levels above safe limits had been supplying 78,000 residents from Mount Victoria to Glenbrook, according to Sydney Water, until the pipeline to a contaminated dam was disconnected last year. Last week, the NSW Environment Protection Authority put out a warning that people should limit their consumption of fish from Wentworth Falls Lake to one serve of redfin perch per week and all other fish species to two serves a week because of the results of testing of surface water and fish for PFAS. Peter Morse, a master fly casting instructor, was out at Wentworth Falls Lake on Monday honing his skills. He said he never catches fish in the lake mainly because of concerns about urban run-off from nearby houses, but noted the lake was stocked with trout annually and they were always fished out by the end of the season. 'It's a popular spot for kids in the mountains to go fishing, and I suspect if they catch a trout, they're going to take it home for mum to cook,' Morse said. On Tuesday, it emerged that University of NSW researchers have found a total of 31 PFAS types in Sydney tap water, including one never before found in tap water anywhere in the world, publishing their findings in the journal Chemosphere overnight. The samples were analysed per drinking water catchment and found to be highest around North Richmond, with potential contamination from the air base. The detected PFAS included 3:3 FTCA, thought to be only the second global detection in any drinking water supply, and 6:2 diPAP, previously found in bottled water and now detected in tap water for the first time. Lead researcher Professor William Alexander Donald said the health effects of 3:3 FTCA were unknown, but there was some evidence to suggest that 6:2 diPAP caused thyroid and reproductive issues. PFOS was found at 6 parts per trillion (ppt), which is 2 ppt below Australian drinking water guidelines of 8 ppt, but higher than the Trump-era US EPA's advisory limit of 4 ppt. Donald said one of the most interesting findings was that Sydney tap water had high levels of PFBA, a short-chain PFAS that is being used as a replacement for the banned substances, PFOS and PFOA. 'It's more mobile in the environment, so it shouldn't persist as long, but across all the samples it has the highest average concentration,' Donald said. 'It shows this idea that you can make tweaks to these chemicals to get around using the banned substances, but then … it ends up in our tap water.' The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines from the National Health and Medical Research Council covers five main types of PFAS: PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFBS and GenX chemicals. A Sydney Water spokesperson said drinking water from all nine of its water filtration plants was safe to drink and met the guidelines. Get to the heart of what's happening with climate change and the environment. Sign up for our fortnightly Environment newsletter.