“LANSING, MI — The state of Michigan wants 1,380 public water systems and about 460 schools to test for fluorochemicals as part a comprehensive effort to develop a baseline dataset on their presence in statewide drinking water supplies.
On Friday, May 18, letters announcing testing for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were issued by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
The DEQ says the $1.7 million effort will be the most robust survey of water supplies undertaken thus far by any state.
The agency says that roughly 75 percent of drinking water consumed in Michigan comes from public water systems. Schools that operate their own wells will be considered priority sites.
The goal is to have testing finished by January.
‘We think this is a proactive step,’ said DEQ communications director Scott Dean. ‘It allows us to learn more, even in the absence of clear policy direction from federal agencies’…
Drinking water testing is the latest effort in a multi-prong state response to PFAS contamination that began with creation of the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team (MPART) in November. Since then, regulators have asked wastewater plants to find PFAS usage among industrial customers and fire departments to find out how much PFAS-laden firefighting foam is in fire department inventories.”
Read the full article by Garret Ellison