'Forever Chemicals' Spread Among Us by Moving Underground, Study Finds

Scientists reviewing over a decade's worth of studies on the fate of notorious pollutants dubbed 'forever chemicals' for the way they persist in waterways, soils, and sea ice have unearthed where environmental hotspot of contamination lie.

The review focused on the soil and waters that make up the Earth's surface.

Much work has been done to detect 'forever chemicals' in contaminated water sources and to understand the impacts on human health, which arise even at very low levels of exposure, prompting health and environmental authorities to revised their safety guidelines.

Since the 1950's, synthetic chemicals have been used as non-stick and waterproof agents.

It is an ongoing challenge to grasp where and how much PFAS substances accumulate beneath Earth's surface.

If the problem is out of sight, it shouldn't be out of mind. The underground comes back to you.

Millions of people rely on drinking water from the underground systems which supply drinking water to millions of people.

The water is dissolved and carried with it all sorts of minerals and pollutants when it rains. The water table is the point where water pools in permanently saturated soils and rocks, and below it is the ground.

Water supplies are one of the most frequent routes for people to be exposed to the substances.

The portion of soil above the water table was identified by Lyu and colleagues as a hotspot of PFASAccumulation.

They looked at how geological factors such as soil and water chemistry interact to influence the transport and retention of pollutants in various layers.

Older studies had not been able to consider newer chemicals in previous analyses.

Those with long carbon chains were retained in soils, while those with short carbon chains were able to quickly enter the ground. The soil was most likely to be contaminated by negatively charged PFCs.

Lyu and colleagues write that understanding the fate and transport of synthetic chemicals in the underground environment is important to assess the risks associated with them.

The review found that only a few of the 12,000 PFAS substances have been studied.

There is a lot of work to be done to connect the dots between where chemicals enter and flow through the environment.

Lyu and colleagues note that the fate of soilborne PFAS chemicals when exposed to thermal processes has received little attention or been overlooked altogether.

It's important that contaminated sites are cleaned up. The stakes are so high that chemical manufacturers are pushing them higher.

"The rate at which these pollutants are appearing in the environment far exceeds the capacity of governments to assess global and regional risks, let alone control any potential problems," ecotoxicologist Bethanie Carney Almroth said earlier this year.

Scientists have made progress in developing methods to remove PFAS substances from water sources and in figuring out a way to degrade them into harmless by-products.

Until we identify, trace, remove and dispose of every last ounce of pollutants, health concerns and environmental harms will continue.

The study was published in a scientific journal.