Jun 4, 2026 · 49 min · 13 segments
Hear more on the research into how "forever chemicals" impact our health and how communities can actually come together to face environmental threats like PFAS in this excerpt from the conversation at…
Victor DavilaGuest
Julia VarshavskyGuestMara HoplamazianHostWhen you started reporting on PFAS in New Hampshire, there were no federal regulations yet.
New Hampshire had just implemented its own standard of 12 parts per trillion for PFAS in drinking water for certain PFAS.
What have you seen change in terms of when you started reporting on this issue and now? Are people talking about PFAS differently? Is the understanding different?
When I, when I took this job five years ago, I had never heard of PFAS chemicals.
Um, [lip smack] and I think these days, more and more people know what that acronym means.
They have a sense of that, you know, there's a class of chemicals, forever chemicals, that are persistent in the environment.
I also think people have a, a greater appreciation for how, um, difficult it can be to treat water and how much time and money it takes to remediate environmental contamination in water that we're drinking.
They're lower levels than New Hampshire's levels that they created in twenty nineteen.
And I think, you know, from the advocates and community members I've talked to, um, there's a sense that it showed, you know, these chemicals are dangerous to human health even at low levels in our drinking water, um, and it sort of gave that, gave that understanding a, a push forward.
Yeah.
Um, one is, you know, these are complicated scientific concepts, um, and I think people just wanna understand them more, what, what these chemicals are, what they're doing to our bodies, what they're doing to our environment, um, and there's more research to do in that, in each of those categories.
They wanna see the, the companies that created and put these chemicals into the environment pay to remediate the environment, um, and, you know, pay for the health consequences in, in many cases of these chemicals.
Um, and, you know, there-- as you said, there's fifteen thousand of these, um, and only six are regulated, and so I think there's a, a big push, at least among the folks that I've talked to, um, to see these chemicals regulated as a class, um, or to have more comprehensive, sort of clear, simple regulation of, of this class of chemicals.
Yeah.
When you started reporting on PFAS in New Hampshire, there were no federal regulations yet.
New Hampshire had just implemented its own standard of 12 parts per trillion for PFAS in drinking water for certain PFAS.
What have you seen change in terms of when you started reporting on this issue and now? Are people talking about PFAS differently? Is the understanding different?
When I, when I took this job five years ago, I had never heard of PFAS chemicals.
Um, [lip smack] and I think these days, more and more people know what that acronym means.
They have a sense of that, you know, there's a class of chemicals, forever chemicals, that are persistent in the environment.
I also think people have a, a greater appreciation for how, um, difficult it can be to treat water and how much time and money it takes to remediate environmental contamination in water that we're drinking.
They're lower levels than New Hampshire's levels that they created in twenty nineteen.
And I think, you know, from the advocates and community members I've talked to, um, there's a sense that it showed, you know, these chemicals are dangerous to human health even at low levels in our drinking water, um, and it sort of gave that, gave that understanding a, a push forward.
Yeah.
Um, one is, you know, these are complicated scientific concepts, um, and I think people just wanna understand them more, what, what these chemicals are, what they're doing to our bodies, what they're doing to our environment, um, and there's more research to do in that, in each of those categories.
They wanna see the, the companies that created and put these chemicals into the environment pay to remediate the environment, um, and, you know, pay for the health consequences in, in many cases of these chemicals.
Um, and, you know, there-- as you said, there's fifteen thousand of these, um, and only six are regulated, and so I think there's a, a big push, at least among the folks that I've talked to, um, to see these chemicals regulated as a class, um, or to have more comprehensive, sort of clear, simple regulation of, of this class of chemicals.
Yeah.
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