Shiny surgical gowns worn in metro Detroit hospitals turned out to be toxic.
They arrived at a Downriver Detroit medical laundry in batches of dirty hospital linen. Washing cleaned them. It also flushed PFAS into the Detroit River, representing one stream among waves of the chemicals streaming into the state’s surface water.
The reason wasn’t obvious at first, but investigators soon figured it out.
“Some of the surgical gowns had PFAS coating on them,” according to state officials summarizing their look into the discharges.
That contamination illustrates results from one of hundreds of lab tests measuring the chemicals at Michigan businesses since 2018 as the state took its search for PFAS contamination into 95 of Michigan’s wastewater treatment plants.
Michigan’s effort to find PFAS coming from active industry is the nation’s first source-reduction program in wastewater for the toxic per- and poly-fluorinated compounds, which affect the drinking water of millions of Americans.
Now, as Michigan’s effort ends its second year, state officials point to what they call “substantial drops” in the amount of PFOS, one type of PFAS, washing through wastewater plants from businesses.
Results, state officials say, are measurable.
“For environmental regulators, it’s easy to get caught up in the mechanics of what we’re doing versus the actual results of protecting water quality and improving water quality,” said Jon Russell, a water resources division manager at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE). “In this case, we can see contaminants being taken out.”
PFOS is one of two types of PFAS chemicals regulated by Michigan due to health risks from the chemicals, linked to cancer and other adverse health effects. The state allows 12 parts per trillion (ppt) in surface water, and it holds a wastewater plant accountable under its federal National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permitting if discharged levels are higher.
The wastewater effort originated in 2017 when a search in the Flint River for sources of PFOS affecting fish at high levels pointed to Lapeer, where the city’s wastewater plant was discharging as much as 2,000-ppt into the river, or 166 times what is now allowed.
That led to Lapeer Plating & Plastics, which was discharging 34,000-ppt into the system, years after it had stopped using chemicals containing PFOS.
While Lapeer worked with that company on reducing the contaminants, the state started to consider what other businesses – including many involved in chrome plating, which historically used PFOS – could also be discharging the chemicals into waterways. Industrial customers are permitted to discharge directly into the systems, which in turn send wastewater treated for many impurities, but not filtered for PFAS back into lakes and rivers.
Each of the 95 public wastewater plants with an Industrial Pretreatment Program by 2019 had to test its effluent, or the water leaving its facility. It also had to identify any significant sources of PFAS, which started with surveys and in many cases included lab tests of wastewater coming into the plant, or influent.
Those lab tests told a story of the volume of PFOS reaching Michigan waterways. Today’s lab tests also tell the story of how much PFOS has been stopped so far. While 68 wastewater plants showed no or very little PFOS, some were extremely high and six warranted immediate action, Russell said.
Among the highest additional levels found during the hunt for industrial PFAS dischargers:
- Bronson, southeast of Kalamazoo, where Bronson Plating had been discharging 240,000-ppt. of PFOS. The wastewater plant reached 150-ppt; by March 2019, it tested at 11-ppt.
- Ionia, northwest of Lansing, saw its wastewater peak at 430-ppt of PFOS in 2018, due to discharges from Ventra of 2,300-ppt. In late 2019, it fell to under 6-ppt.
- Wixom, northeast of Ann Arbor, measured its discharges into the Huron River at 290-ppt in 2018, enough to eventually prompted a full-chain ban on fishing. Tribar had been sending 28,000-ppt of PFOS into its system at the same time. The system most recently tested at 33-ppt, but it has been lower.
Those reductions represent single companies paying for new filtering and other changes in their facilities, officials said.
“We made some really remarkable progress fast in terms of their effluent because they only had one or two users that had to be brought under a treatment system,” Russell said.
Other systems posed more challenges.
Grand Rapids is one of them, with at least 13 identified sources of PFOS that had been sending levels over 12-ppt into the system that drains into the Grand River and, ultimately, Lake Michigan.
Overall results in Grand Rapids have dropped to acceptable levels, the state said, but individual companies still need to reach the state’s screening level of 12-ppt for PFOS.
As a result, the fixes in Grand Rapids remain a work in progress. A pilot system at one Lacks Enterprises facility, for example, had to be re-engineered, leaving its other four plants still in line for a new treatment system. Three more companies all should have filter systems operational by summer 2020, according to the state.
The Great Lakes Water Authority also continues its effort. Among its hundreds of industrial customers, 52 were found to be discharging PFAS. Nine now are removing the chemicals from their wastewater.
Reino Linen Service is among nine contributors to the PFAS flow coming into the Downriver Utility Authority. While the plating industry and airports are expected places to find PFAS, laundry is an example of the less understood sources of PFAS in the environment.
The example of the “shiny” surgical gowns affecting Reino’s discharge shows how PFOS can still get into the environment, despite U.S. industry banning the chemicals.
“We began looking at potential textiles that may contain various forms of water barrier coatings (and) we also contacted vendors of products that are used in the laundering process,” a Reino company representative told the state. “We found several garments that were made in China that had imprints from lab results that indicated several garments contained PFAS/PFOS.”
Company officials did not return calls for comment, but state documents show the company no longer washes the surgical gowns, and tests show no more PFAS in its wastewater.
Those results came at an undisclosed cost to the company. Solving the PFOS flow has posed both technical and financial challenges for companies affected, while the municipalities also must deal with testing and other costs. Lapeer filed a lawsuit against Lapeer Plating & Plastics to recoup some of the estimated $3 million it spent to resolve issues there, including finding a new destination for sludge that was prohibited from being used on farm fields.
Learning what types of treatment and how to set it up has been a learning curve for everyone involved, Russell said. Early attempts involved cleaning fume suppressant tanks, which seemed to stir up more chemicals. Some filtering plans were ineffective, and needed to be redone, while consultants had to set up the ability to deal with multiple clients needing individual filtering solutions. There was no wide-scale industry to do that when this started, officials said. Even lab test results could take months.
“When this started, there was very little knowledge (about how to remove PFOS from systems),” said Stephanie Kammer of EGLE. “There were lots of starts and stops, and learning what they needed to do.”
Those stops and starts resulted in some companies continuing to send PFOS into surface water after they were identified as polluters. That has been a concern for the public, notably in situations like Wixom, where the contamination traveled down the Huron River and reached Ann Arbor’s drinking water supply.
“We are not overtly trying to balance economics and public health, but we acknowledge that it takes time,” Russell said.
“PFAS was being discharged for a long time, whether we knew it or not,” he said. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable, when our goal is source control, to take a little time to get it right at the end of the pipe. ... They’re not going to be let off the hook."
EGLE plans to keep gathering data on wastewater effluent, notably as the state moves toward establishing concentration limits for biosolids, or the solids left from the wastewater process that can be used as fertilizer.
Permitting also is changing, with PFOS and a related chemical, PFOA, added to the list of chemicals that wastewater plants have to monitor. Eventually, more PFAS chemicals - including the so-called “replacement products” for PFOS and PFOA, could be added to the list of contaminants regulated in wastewater.
Other states now are considering similar PFAS reduction plans for wastewater, based on Michigan models, Russell said. Wisconsin is the latest to announce an effort, and others are consulting with the state on its model.
Meanwhile, the success of the IPP program suggests that similar approach could result in more source-reduction if applied to other regulations in Michigan, Russell said, including stormwater runoff.
“Hopefully we can start to consider what’s next and pursue a similar methodology,” Russell said.
