Approved fracking compounds can form PFAS a.k.a. “forever chemicals” | Hacker News Reader

Approved fracking compounds can form PFAS a.k.a. “forever chemicals”

nytimes.com

116 pointsabawany32 comments

> In recent days, whistle-blowers have alleged in the Intercept that the E.P.A. office in charge of reviewing toxic chemicals tampered with the assessments of dozens of chemicals to make them appear safer. [1]

> E.P.A. scientists evaluating new chemicals “are the last line of defense between harmful — even deadly — chemicals and their introduction into U.S. commerce, and this line of defense is struggling to maintain its integrity,” the whistle-blowers said in their disclosure, which was released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a Maryland-based nonprofit group.

[1]: https://theintercept.com/2021/07/02/epa-chemical-safety-corr...

Classic NYT burying other publications' beating them to the story.

They actually mention the intercept and link to their article. That's more than 9\d% of publications usually do, so I believe they deserve nothing but praise.

The article is also extremely detailed and includes lots of original material. I stopped counting at around two dozen different people the reporters called for this article.

First reporting a story doesn't create any moral or legal ownership of the facts. Otherwise, it'd be impossible for any but the largest publications to survive. And it's even more asinine to complain about a publication putting in the effort to go further and deeper as they do in this case.

You have it completely backwards. NY Times is notorious in journalism for forgetting to mention others' articles or putting them towards the very end of the article.

I'm not nearly as worried about fracking when it comes to PFAS/PFOAs as I am about airports. It is well documented, that airports (especially military ones) have used PFAS/PFOAs as firefighting agents for years and years. If you live near an airport, you should not be drinking groundwater. If you absolutely must, then get it tested!

Large swathes of Silicon Valley in Mountain View are super fund sites because of the degreasers and firefighting chemicals they used at Moffett field. The chemicals went into the ground water and spread throughout the entire area from 101 to past Central Expressway.

According to the map, Moffett field seems to be right at the coast. I've never been to that area. Is there no slope towards the coastal area of Moffett field?

Edit: thinking about it, the bay is subject to tides which probably affects the ground water as well. This would regularly press ground water from the coast inland and back again.

I would doubt the groundwater contamination at Moffett Field would migrate inland. Groundwater in Mountain View moves in the direction of the bay.

The groundwater contamination in Mountain View proper comes from the many companies that manufactured semiconductors and other electronics in the '50s through the '80s. Many of which did a poor job disposing of the chemicals they used in electronics manufacturing.

And often had leaking underground tanks.

If you walk the trails around Stanford, both College Terrace and the Dish, you’ll see sampling tubes for monitoring soil quality because of this.

Same thing in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. Never buy a home down there due to toxins and also if you find a problem you have to fix it, including your neighbors land.

That neighbor fixing might only be if the problem originated from your land, such as a leaking underground oil tank, but it will still be tens of thousands of dollars to clean up.

Indeed: US Air Force Base Poisoning Drinking Water Of Half a Million Japanese

https://theglobepost.com/2020/10/15/us-military-base-poisoni...

Yea, this has happened in Sweden and affecting god knows how many adults, children or newborns over many years due to a PFAS poisoned water supply.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...

Question: How is a "forever chemical" different from any other chemical?

Google search:

> "PFAS are commonly referred to as “forever chemicals”"

Google search:

> PFAS = Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances

Wikipedia entry, 'environmental concerns' section:

> In 2009, PFASs were listed as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) under the Stockholm Convention [1], due to their ubiquitous, persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic nature.

> The nickname was derived by combining the two dominant attributes of this class of chemicals:

> 1) PFAS chemicals are characterized by a carbon-fluorine (C-F) backbone (the "F-C" in "Forever Chemicals"); and

> 2) the carbon fluorine bond is one of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry, which gives these chemicals an extremely long environmental half-life

Wikipedia entry, Fluorine, PFAS mention:

> Dwell time in the body varies greatly by species, with half-lives of days in rodents, and years in humans.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Convention_on_Persis...

The "forever chemicals" stay around, well, forever. They won't ever degrade under typical earth conditions. If you where to submerge all of earth in lava, there would still be some stuck around. This means that the more there is, the more will accumulate in the food chain?

Maybe microbes will evolve to get better at reductive defluorination. Microbes that can use chlorinated solvents as terminal electron acceptors are pretty widespread. https://sci-hub.se/10.1021/acs.est.0c04483

And where does all that contaminated waste water go?

In many parts of the country they spray it on public roadways as "de-icer" in the winter.

My friend recently learned that cities have been banning their rodent control teams from using dry ice to attack rat nests- even though it seems very effective when spending 1/10th the price of existing rodent solutions.

They forbid the use of dry ice because it's not a registered pesticide.

The friend immediately cursed the city, saying how this is an example of corruption, and whoever sells the traditional rat bait has someone's ear, and maybe their pocket, and we're all suffering because workers can't use the cheap, more effective solution.

That of course has to be part of the story, but I always like to look beyond the easy cynical answer to this stuff, so over the following days my mind wandered to why we have a regulation that only registered pesticides can be used.

And it dawned on me that there are a lot of things (like toxic waste) that will kill (at least) rats. Companies are currently forced to pay money to dispose of their toxic waste, but with the right connections, they could instead sell the toxic waste to their buddy in the rat-poisoning business to dispose of in alleys and planters across the city.

Couldn't something like _that_ inspire the rule about registered pesticides? My friend said that I was actually the cynical one, and that my theory was beyond what was reasonably possible. But here we are, spraying the fracking fluid on the road as 'de-icer'

It might inspire the rule, but it's a terrible way to write the rule. Restrictions on toxic chemicals shouldn't apply to non-toxic chemicals. CO2 is even on the list of safe food additives.

Rats are pretty choosy/smart about what they eat, most "toxic waste" is not acutely toxic enough to kill rats before they birth several litters, and AFAIK no rodenticides are under patent (the most recent one, bromethalin, is a horrifying product of rational drug design optmizing for palatability and delayed action - still it was invented in the 1960s or something). So probably not in this case

Reminds me of how they used to spray motor oil on dirt roads to keep the dust down.

They still do something similar to this. It's awful for the paint of your car, and quite dangerous on a motorcycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipseal

Reminds me of how they used to spray Agent Orange on Vietnam to keep vegetation down.

They water almonds with it in California

Got a source for that? Guess I won't be buying more American almond if true

It's actually all types of Californian produce.

https://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-september/california-prod...

In the sites I've been involved with they often have wastewater disposal wells they use specifically for this, they just pump it into the ground. https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-and-where-do-drillers-dispose-...

Isn't Biden responsible for the EPA? Seems like something Bernie would have had a lot more to say about.

Second graph starts with "2011", so the slightly better wrong take would be to fault President Obama for this.

Later on, we learn the law at the time was from 1975, and the Obama administration did finally succeed in 2016 to update it. Want to bet which party tried to delay and weaken it at every opportunity?

Bless your heart if you think that both parties aren’t a uniparty at this point.

Divide and conquer works, and works well.

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