More resources needed for PFAS testing

On Sunday, The Gazette’s Erin Jordan the barriers faced by a Linn County landowner seeking to have his private well tested for industrial chemicals.

David Gerleman owns a farm near Swisher and has followed reporting on the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl, also known as PFAS in wells on land near The Eastern Iowa Airport. The use of firefighting foam has been identified as the culprit.

Then groundwater testing by University of Iowa scientists found PFAS levels 2,000 times the level considered safe for drinking water. “I thought ‘If it's in Plum Creek, it's just a matter of time until it will progress downstream to my location',” Gerleman said.

Each Iowa county is allotted $50,500 annually for well testing, so Gerleman sought assistance from Linn County. But he was told he didn’t qualify. PFAS testing is expensive, costing at least $370 for an initial test and more than $700 for a subsequent test, so the county limits the testing it can fund to wells within a mile radius of a positive test. Testing for nitrates and arsenic cost only $60.

It’s true, PFAS tests are expensive. But the cost of contamination is far higher.

Research has linked PFAS to cancer, birth defects and illness connected to the kidneys, liver and thyroid. Exposure may also reduce immunity to illnesses. More than 200,000 Iowans rely on private wells for drinking water.

So this is a major public health challenge. And it demands more state resources to allow for more testing.

Not only should the state allocate more funding for well testing to counties, but it should scrap a rule that requires counties that have not used their allocation to return the money for reallocation to other counties. It would be more reasonable to return unspent money at the end of the fiscal year.

University of Iowa researchers are working to make PFAS testing more affordable by allowing residents, instead of trained professionals, to test their wells. Making the tests cheaper, while still accurate, would be a big step toward getting many more wells tested.

This should be a front-burner issue, along with Iowa’s mounting list of water quality problems, when state lawmakers return to the Capitol in January.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com