PFAS: Drinking Water's Dirty 4-Letter Word

Have you ever bought furniture with stain-resistant fabrics? Or eaten food that was in a fast-food wrapper or cooked in a nonstick frying pan? If the answer is yes, then you may have been exposed to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), at least in the past. These "forever chemicals" were highlighted in Mark Ruffalo's recent movie "Dark Waters", and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) even decided to implement strict drinking water regulations for a subset of these chemicals. But how frequently are they detected in the environment and at what concentrations? And what can we do about them?

This episode takes a "deep dive" into the occurrence and likely sources of PFAS in the Las Vegas Valley watershed. A better understanding of these "forever chemicals" and where they are coming from will help us determine wha ...