Drinking water, believed to be safe, is used for cooking, washing hands, washing hair, brushing teeth and daily bathing. What you are about to read might be tough to swallow: The tragic reports about driking water being tainted with a toxic chemical used to make Teflon are not getting any better.

The chemical is perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA that DuPont and other companies used for decades to make non-stick, waterproof and stain-resistant products. PFOA and related chemicals, which studies show can cause cancer and reproductive disorders, pollute virtually all Americans' blood and pass from mother to child in the womb.

It was during the summer of 2015 that a group of scientists at Harvard and the University of Massachusetts discovered PFOA is hazardous, even in the tiniest of doses; which is hundreds of times smaller than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is safe. There have been updates since this discovery. The more we learn, the more the situation worsens.

Consider the following:

Long known to severely contaminate drinking water near a DuPont plant in Parkersburg, West Virgina, PFOA was recently found at high levels in the water supplies of Hoosick Falls, New York, and North Bennington, Vermont. Health officials say residents should not use contaminated water for drinking, cooking or brushing teeth.

In Hoosick Falls, New York, the EPA warned residents not to  drink water containing more 100 parts per trillion of PFOA, which is about four times lower than the agency's current non-enforceable health advisory level. But, because the EPA did not consider the most recent science, the new level is still 100 times higher than what the Harvard-UMass study said is safe.

California state scientists just listed PFOA and its chemical cousin, PFOS, as high priority for review and potential addition to the state's official registry of chemicals known to cause reproductive disorders. PFOA contaminates 14 California water systems serving more than 1.4 million people – more than any other state – and adding it to the registry under the state's Safe Drinking Water Act could require expensive treatment of those systems to reduce the pollution.

EPA-mandated testing continues to find PFOA in more public water supplies nationwide. Last August EWG reported that EPA's sampling program found PFOA in 94 water systems serving more than 6.5 million people in 27 states. Since then, reports to EPA by by local utilities have upped the number to 103 water supplies serving nearly 7 million people. (Contamination was not reported from any additional states.) The recently reported PFOA contamination includes:

Last summer's testing results reported no water systems contaminated with PFOA above the EPA's previous advisory level, eight systems have had test results at or above the lower level EPA recommended in Hoosick Falls. 

Source:

EWG

from

EPA

Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring program
 

Keep in mind that the new level from EPA is still much higher than the safe level in the Harvard-UMass study. With evidence mounting that EPA's advisory level is too weak, states are taking action. Besides California's nomination of PFOA to its list of reproductive toxins, the Vermont Department of Public Health considered recent science and set a much more conservative drinking water advisory level: 20 parts per trillion, a standard by which every PFOA-contaminated water supply reported to EPA's is unsafe.

What's more, EPA's testing program only covers water system serving more than 10,000 people, which is why the contamination in Hoosick Falls and North Bennington was not detected. EWG again calls on DuPont and all other former makers of PFOA to immediately disclose all locations where the chemical was produced, used or dumped, and for local, state and federal officials to make sure the water in each place is tested.

New Jersey is a hot spot for teflon, according to Kathleen O'Brien of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com. There are millions of Americans who may be drinking toxic water, according to Alejandro Davia Fragosa, Climate Reporter for ThinkProgress.