Rising awareness about “forever chemicals” in drinking water and the serious health risks they pose finally resulted in action last April when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passed new regulations for water suppliers across the country.

But the agency responsible for setting the standards of safe drinking water has known about the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and their potential dangers for almost two decades, according to a Prism analysis of public documents. In the years following the EPA’s decision not to regulate PFAS in drinking water, suppliers across the country have been able to knowingly serve water contaminated with the cancer-causing chemicals while still passing federal standards on water safety. A Prism analysis of water quality reports of both New Jersey’s Middlesex Water Company and Raritan Basin Water Supply System shows how this dynamic played out in one area of the country. 

Over the course of 2023, Middlesex served 14 billion gallons of water. The Raritan Basin Water Supply System serves more than 126 million gallons of water to 56 New Jersey communities on a daily basis. The true picture of the dangers posed comes fully into focus only when we understand just how much, and for how long, the public has been served contaminated water without legal protection.

Contaminated water reports

PFAS are man-made chemicals regularly used in products such as nonstick cookware, clothes, and carpets. From the 1940s to the early 2000s, manufacturers relied heavily on PFAS because they are incredibly resistant to grease, water, heat, and oil. Their inability to be broken down may add to the lifespan of a nonstick pan, but it has also allowed for these non-biodegradable chemicals to continually build up in the environment and in our bodies.

“It’s a bioaccumulative chemical, and it doesn’t break down in the body,” said Dr. Dibs Sarkar of Stevens Institute of Technology, a geochemist and recent recipient of a $1.29 million Department of Defense grant for PFAS remediation. “Whatever you’re drinking is remaining in your body. It’s not getting out.” Consequently, the more PFAS chemicals you drink, the greater the damage they are able to inflict, including deadly cancers, liver and heart damage, and immune and developmental impacts on children. 

The EPA’s 2024 regulations for two of the most dangerous PFAS chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS, dictate a legal limit, or a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL), of 4 ppt, though water suppliers do not have to report their figures until 2027.

“One part per trillion is just a drop of something in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools,” Sarkar said. The reason why the MCLs are restricted to such minuscule increments, he said, is because “it can be toxic at such low concentrations.” 

But water quality reports and other documents surrounding two of New Jersey’s largest public water suppliers show that the companies have been serving PFAS-contaminated water for years, including at levels surpassing existing regulations. Water quality reports from 2023 show that levels for PFOA and PFOS reached an average of 6 parts per trillion (ppt) and 5 ppt, respectively, within the Middlesex Water Company, which first detected PFAS in its water in 2014. Within New Jersey American Water’s system, those numbers were 6 ppt and 7 ppt. These levels are higher than the new EPA limit of 4 ppt for PFOA and PFOS, but lower than the state limits of 14 ppt and 13 ppt that New Jersey introduced in 2020 in the absence of federal regulations. 

But even the concentrations reported don’t tell the full story. Rather, these numbers reflect the running annual average of PFAS concentrations as sampled over four consecutive quarters. According to an ongoing lawsuit filed in 2022 by the Middlesex Water Company accusing the manufacturer 3M of contaminating one of its water sources, Middlesex claimed its groundwater supply in the first three quarters of 2020 had PFOA at eye-popping levels of 25 ppt, 23 ppt, and 36 ppt. While the legislation set by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection allowed for water quality reports to present averages, the court documents provide actual concentrations as directly sampled from Middlesex’s water supply at its Park Avenue Wells Treatment Plant.     

Middlesex Water Company did not provide Prism with a statement or answers to its queries.

A known problem

Public documents indicate that state and federal officials have known about PFAS contamination for nearly two decades. Through the Bureau of Safe Drinking Water, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) first began testing for PFOA and PFOS in 2006, indicating in the report that New Jersey American Water Company was just one of the many public water suppliers to find both PFOA and PFOS in their finished drinking water as it was served to customers. 

A 2016 report on PFOA from the New Jersey Drinking Water Quality Institute found that of the 23 New Jersey drinking water systems monitored in the study, 65% had concentrations of PFOA and 30% had concentrations of PFOS in their finished drinking water or drinking water sources. 

As a result of these studies, the Drinking Water Quality Institute stated through a 2017 health report that it voted to develop a recommended PFOA limit in January 2009 “based on its potential health effects and its occurrence in New Jersey public water supplies (PWS).” That same year, the EPA added these chemicals to its Contaminant Candidate List, published every five years. 

The list assesses unregulated contaminants and the possible threats they pose to the future quality of drinking water. The EPA then decides whether to pass a national drinking water regulation for any of the contaminants listed. Despite placing PFAS chemicals on its 2009 list and then relisting them again in 2016 and 2022, the EPA chose not to regulate them for years. 

The EPA did not provide Prism a statement or answers to its queries.

In 2014, NJDEP commissioner Bob Martin requested that the Drinking Water Quality Institute recommend a Maximum Contaminant Level for PFAS chemicals, and New Jersey once again revisited the possibility of legislation. By this time, Middlesex Water Company had found PFAS in its water supply, according to its water quality report, due to an EPA requirement for public water suppliers to test for specific unregulated contaminants. Through this 2013-2015 edition of the agency’s monitoring rule, water suppliers only had to report the existence of PFOA and PFOS if they were detected in concentrations of at least 20 nanograms per liter, or 20 parts per trillion.

This suggests that contrary to the annual running averages Middlesex reported on its 2023 water quality report, Middlsex’s water supply hit high concentrations of PFAS contamination as far back as a decade ago, the extremes of which were once again reported in its 2022 class action lawsuit.

The EPA reports that 6,000 public water systems nationwide participated in its 2013-2015 monitoring rule. The data gathered reveals that the PFAs chemicals PFOA and PFOS, in addition to PFNA, PFHxS, PFHpA, and PFBS, all appeared simultaneously in the supply of 4,920 public water systems around the country. 

Contamination at the source

In 2022, Donald Shields, New Jersey American Water Company’s vice president of engineering, testified to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities about the susceptibility of its water supply. He cited PFAS as a primary threat to the company’s surface water systems.

“NJAWC’s surface water and groundwater sources are subject to run off from upstream sources that can lead to possible contamination and resulting treatment challenges such as cryptosporidium, PFAS, or an unexpected chemical release upstream,” Shields testified.

That same year, in its lawsuit against 3M, Middlesex Water Company alleged that the company’s “manufacture and sale of products containing PFOA and PFOS led to the discharge of these chemicals into the environment, which contaminated [Middlesex’s] public drinking water supply.” The lawsuit refers to PFAS concentrations at Middlesex’s Park Avenue Wells Treatment Plant in South Plainfield, which provides the company’s groundwater. 

Contamination in the groundwater at this particular plant points to likely PFAS pollution in the Brunswick Aquifer, the natural source from which both New Jersey American Water and Middlesex obtain their groundwater, according to each company’s water quality reports. 

Contamination of the Brunswick Aquifer, part of the much larger Newark Basin, would threaten the entirety of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York’s water supply. In addition to housing the Brunswick Aquifer, Newark Basin’s formation also includes the Stockton, Lockatong, Basalt, and Diabase aquifers.  

“The bedrock aquifers are interconnected,” Sarkar said. “If there is PFAS pollution in one of them, then it will create the possibility of contaminating the other aquifers in the system.”

Both the NJDEP and the EPA would have already known this because of a United States Geological Survey (USGS) study of the Newark Basin, organized by commissioner Bob Martin in 2010. 

Meanwhile, the 2013-2015 monitoring rule by the EPA also uncovered PFOA and PFOS contamination at two U.S. Navy bases at Willow Grove and Warminster, and the Air National Guard Station at Horsham, located in Southeastern Pennsylvania within the Newark Basin system. 

In 2019, the United States Geological Survey and the U.S. Navy conducted another study of the basin to discern how PFAS contamination from the Naval bases, situated on the Lockatong and Stockton formations, spread through groundwater and, more importantly, throughout the aquifers. This evaluation, as it tracked groundwater flow around the Naval bases from 1999 to 2017, cites long-term environmental monitoring, water quality reports, and investigations of the Newark Basin that can be dated back to 2003. 

Prism’s analysis of these documents indicates that the NJDEP and the EPA were aware of PFAS contamination in the state’s drinking water supply and the entire Newark Basin. 

In New Jersey alone, the Fair Lawn Water Department, New Jersey American Water Company’s Short Hills System, Veolia’s Allendale Water Department, and the Hawthorne Water System all source water from the Brunswick Aquifer. 

Aging facilities

Despite the long history of chronic exposure by New Jersey residents,, the EPA’s new PFAS regulations dictate that public water companies do not have to finish facility upgrades until 2029.

Although Middlesex detected PFAS as early as 2014, its latest water quality reports show that the company’s Park Avenue Wells Treatment Plant did not finish upgrades to protect against PFAS until June 2023, nearly nine years later. New Jersey American Water similarly failed to update its filtration system to filter PFAS with the timeliness necessary to protect its customers; Shields told the state’s Board of Public Utilities in 2022 that the company’s Raritan-Millstone Water Treatment Plant had filters dating back to the 1920s, with the newest from the 1980s. 

As of November 2024, New Jersey American Water Company’s Senior Director of Communications Denise Free confirmed to Prism that the Raritan-Millstone Water Treatment Plant has yet to upgrade its filters. 

“Currently, the Raritan-Millstone Water Treatment Plant does not have PFAS treatment because it is in compliance with current NJ PFAS standards; however, we are doing a PFAS treatment pilot at the plant to prepare for additional treatment for compliance with EPA PFAS regulations when those become effective.” 

So, for each year the EPA surveyed PFAS without regulation, Middlesex Water Company and New Jersey American Water Company’s customers unknowingly drank, showered, and prepared food with PFAS-contaminated water. Despite regularly monitoring for and actively finding these contaminants, the EPA’s lack of legislation around PFA chemicals allowed these water suppliers to “surpass” EPA standards by way of legal technicalities. 

Public health concerns 

In addition to setting a legally enforceable limit (the MCL), the EPA also creates a Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG). This measure is a non-enforceable public health goal determined “solely on human health,” according to Dr. Shannon Roback, the science director of New York’s clean water advocacy group Riverkeeper.

The EPA has set this public health goal for PFOA and PFOS at zero, “which means that there is no safe level,” Roback said. 

The contradictions between a public health goal of zero and a maximum contaminant level of 4 ppt exist because of how much weight the agency places on cost efficiency and what the legislation dubs “feasibility.” Roback said this standard is ascertained by practicality and cost rather than concern for public health alone, “If you look at the EPA primary drinking water standards, there are a lot of MCLGs that are at zero. The MCL is then set based also on cost and feasibility.” 

For example, Roback said, “EPA would also not set an MCL that would bankrupt every water treatment plant in the country because they would all need to install $5 million worth of treatment, and there is no money to do that.” 

Right as the monitoring rule began in 2013, the agency had already finished its health studies for PFOA and PFOS, both of which came to the conclusion that consumption of these chemicals can cause many adverse health effects. However, these were not the first health studies conducted on PFOA; the EPA’s own research showed PFAS could cause cancer as far back as 2005. Meanwhile, the Drinking Water Quality Institute reported that it knew in 2009 that PFAS, when consumed through drinking water, is bioaccumulative, meaning it stays in our bodies forever and builds up over time. 

Consequently, the more PFAS chemicals you drink, the greater the damage they are able to inflict, allowing them not only to cause cancer but to then feed the growth of cancerous cells or tumors. “Cancer takes time to actually proliferate in your body,” Sarkar said. 

If multiple types of PFAS chemicals, such as PFOA and PFOS, are found together, as was the case in Middlesex’s water supply, they can inflict greater harm than if they were consumed independently. “You are pretty much doubling the toxic effect in your body,” Sarkar said. For New Jersey residents, prolonged and chronic exposure to a mixture of PFOA and PFOS has left them susceptible to a multiplied effect for both kidney and breast cancer.  

Two decades worth of the EPA’s contaminant candidate lists, monitoring programs, and a lack of legislation as it allowed for inadequate treatment facilities, show that the decision to leave the public vulnerable was not just made once. It was a choice made over and over again at the expense of the very people that the EPA, the NJDEP, and the public water facilities are supposed to protect.

Correction, Monday, Dec. 23: This article was updated to correct the name of Stevens Institute of Technology, where Dr. Dibs Sarkar is a geochemist.