Climate Thoughts with Brian

Poisoning The Well is a critical exposé of the pervasive plague of PFAS chemicals and the inability of the US Government to effectively regulate against a raft of toxic chemicals. The publication timing of this book comes when the Trump Presidency in early 2025 moves to reverse state bans on toxic forever chemicals and instead change the way the EPA carries out chemical risk evaluations, with the increased risk to consumers.

This book then should serve as a reference book for the UK and other countries around the world, as it highlights delaying practices from chemical companies and the tactical ‘spin-off’ strategies used by them, to avoid full responsibility, accountability and liability. It is a harrowing read, as we can see how close we are to an environmental disaster and we can also see the lack of action from our government to intervene. Time and again in the book, we see striking similarities between actions from chemical companies abroad and a lack of oversight in our own country. We must learn from the hard lessons of the USA.

As the UK and Western Europe seem to be playing catch up with PFAS chemical regulation, Poisoning The Well identifies the new ultra-short-chain subtypes, such as PFMOAA and PFPrA, promoted by chemical companies, and powerfully argues that research into their impacts needs to be a priority. As noted in the text, ‘In the endless world of emerging PFAS, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the ultra-short-chain subtypes are a troubling new facet of the forever chemical problem.’

Individuals and communities are trying desperately to manage with the active chemical pollution sites which have destroyed lives, but need concerted action, remediation and justice for the widespread chemical pollution of the environment.

“All this time, it’s been in the water, it’s gotten into the food chain. We’re eating it. It’s in plastics. We are sleeping in it. It’s in everything we touch.” –  Erin Brockovich

Udasin and Frazin offer an extensive and detailed history of the actions of companies like 3M, DuPont and Chemours and note that the dangers of PFAS have been known on an  industry wide level for decades. The similarities between these chemical giants and the actions of Big Tobacco are implicitly alluded to in the text. What makes this text even more shocking is that it does not simply relate industry behaviours from the 1960s and 1970s, but describes legal cases that have been brought in just the last few years as well. ‘In October 2021, the City of Decatur, along with Morgan County and Decatur Utilities, settled with 3M for nearly $100million.’ All too often though, we note that these chemical settlements can often come with a caveat that ‘the agreement is “no admission of wrongdoing or liability.” Therefore, do financial settlements go far enough?

 Awakening the public conscience is always difficult, but the film ‘Dark Waters’, about the lawyer Rob Bilott’s efforts to make the chemical company DuPont responsible for its actions, certainly seems to have struck a chord around the world and has acted as a legal precedent in this litigation field.

A lack of regulatory oversight

The authors also argue that a lack of effective regulatory oversight has allowed chemical companies to pollute in an unimpeded manner, with the dangers of self-reporting and under-reporting being rife. ‘In November 2017, it came to light that 3M had alerted the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) that it had been underreporting its discharge of PFAS into the Tennessee River- for three years and by a factor of a thousand.’ The links between the lack of regulation in North America and the lack of regulation over the private water companies in the UK, which have been pumping sewage into rivers for years, are made sadly all too clear for a UK audience.

The dangers of sludge spreading and the unknown contents of these bio-solids should also be a lesson to be learned, with toxic contamination rife, with enforcement non-existent. The activist George Monbiot writes of sewage sludge being sold to farmers in the UK with levels of forever PFAS chemicals up to 135 times higher than those considered safe by scientists. This level of contamination and pollution is happening on our watch and so far, is being met with silence. Those who should have been enforcing regulatory standards have been either toothless or complicit.  ‘In short, federal oversight has hardly been a panacea for dangerous chemicals. The long-standing struggle between regulators and industry begs the question- Who wields the real power over Americans’ exposure to these toxic substances?’

Switching off these ‘pollution taps’ is only the first step. Combatting the legacy contamination will take both years and levels of financial aid which are eye-watering. A financial responsibility, which chemical companies who have profited from these pollutants, appear unwilling to bear. It becomes then a state lottery as to the levels of protection against PFAS, as Udasin and Frazin note that while some states take preventative action against the toxic chemical pollution, others wait for the health impacts to hit the population. Action is then clearly possible, if the political will is there.

‘Maine became the first state to require that sludge be tested for PFAS and then to ban the materials’s spread.

As of mid-2024, Maine was the only state to have prohibited the presence of PFAS in sludge entirely, although at least sixteen other states were either implementing or considering solutions to this problem.’

Communities count the cost

Understanding that PFAS pollution is a country wide issue for the US is made abundantly clear in Poisoning The Well, as examples are cited from Maine, West Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Colorado, Ohio, Delaware, North Carolina and Michigan. In all these states, the authors describe local impacts: from schools being built on landfill sites; fights to ensure that safe drinking water is provided in schools; to neighbours watching their communities being torn apart with cancers and other illnesses, which could have been prevented. Communities with strong military links have also found to be heavily exposed to forever chemicals. The history of ‘aqueous film-forming foam’ of AFFF on US military bases is forensically examined in the book, with the argument being made that the US Navy knew from the late 1970s that AFFF had toxic effects. ‘But the military, like industry, already had some indication of AFFF’s toxic effects decades before such knowledge became public knowledge.’ In terms of PFAS clean up of military sites, the legacy contamination continues, ‘By the end of 2023, the Defense Department had assessed more than 700 bases and found that 574 of them needed remediation.’  

Despite this, it will be difficult for military personnel to prove the causal link between their poor health and exposure to toxic chemicals in all cases, and sadly this will be seized on lawyers for chemical companies, both in the US and in the UK, where they will argue that because PFAS is so pervasive, that identifying one source of exposure is too difficult. The playbook of Big Tobacco will be used once again by those looking to escape blame. How military personnel and veterans can be treated this way by an organisation meant to look after them is truly a shocking revelation. To be left to face their health battles alone is a betrayal of their service.

‘Someone’s got to be responsible’

Poisoning The Well is unashamedly a human story. It is not a detached, impartial overview of chemical contamination. Instead, it focuses on individuals and communities. Communities that could be us. That might still be us. The book celebrates those who have fought to raise awareness in their towns and communities, at great personal cost to themselves. Because it was the right thing to do.

Regardless of where we now live, environmental pollution is becoming a dominant issue. Very rarely is contamination accidental. The authors tell moving story after moving story of people whose lives have been turned inside out, owing simply to the geography of where they were born, grew up, went to school, or went to work. Places that they thought were safe. Places that ought to have been safe.

Domestic products were sold to people in huge numbers when health effects were known, argues the book. Now, we have a situation where the ‘sheer number of different compounds out there’ and their individual, as well as cumulative impacts on humans, has created a global contamination crisis. PFAS pollution could be the biggest environmental disaster facing us. But it is not too late to stop the ticking time-bomb of harm. 

Someone is responsible for the contamination.

But all of us are responsible for speaking out about PFAS pollution where we can. We, too, have a responsibility to demand action and justice from those who have contaminated our towns, homes and families. Slowly- all too slowly- the eyes of everyday people are being opened to the dangers of PFAS forever chemicals. 

If other countries do not learn the brutal and harsh lessons from the USA, and instead pander to mendacious chemical companies for financial gain, then they will be complicit to the toxic poisoning of millions.