A new report from Environment America’s Georgia Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group shows PFAS — a class of synthetic chemicals that are notoriously difficult to break down and have been increasingly linked to health problems like cancers — are present and persisting in Georgia’s waterways.
PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are an abundant group of over 12,000 distinct chemicals. They are commonly used in kitchen hardware like pots and pans, food packaging, cosmetics, cleaning products, synthetic clothing and a lot more.
The report says that it has detected at least 114 different PFAS compounds across all the analyzed data; the report looked at data from more than 1,602 total sites across the U.S. The data samples from the waterways were taken between 2022 and 2024, where PFAS was found at some level at 83 percent of locations, or roughly 1,329 sites, at varying degrees. A majority of the testing sites were concentrated in the Northeast.
The report also emphasized that PFAS could be more prevalent across the nation, and that this study only examined this limited number of sites. For reference, there are over 2.5 million miles of rivers and streams in the U.S., not including lakes and smaller bodies of water.
PFAS can enter waterways in a number of ways, according to the report; these can range from industrial discharge directly into bodies of water to passing through traditional wastewater treatment plants, which are not built to handle PFAS.
In Georgia specifically, PFAS was found in 100 percent of the 20 testing locations samples came from, with 23 different compounds identified across those sites.
The sites in Georgia ranged across the state, as did the concentrations of PFAS. And while some sites tested better than others, no site had acceptable levels of PFAS contaminants — because, according to the EPA, there are none.
Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG) is the non-enforceable level of public water systems at which “no known or adverse effects on the health of persons are anticipated to occur and which allows for an adequate margin of safety.” Just above this threshold is the Maximum Contaminant Level, the point at which the EPA could start enforcing.
In 2024, the EPA PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation was working towards an MCLG of zero as it found that there were no levels of PFAS in water that came without health risks.
Until zero is feasible, however, the EPA gave different thresholds for specific types of PFAS, such as PFNA, PFHxS, and HFPO-DA (GenX Chemicals), having MCLs of 10 parts per trillion, or PFOA and PFOS being set at 4 parts per trillion.
That report also said that “PFAS can often be found together and in varying combinations as mixtures” — true of Georgia sites tested for this analysis report, too, which often featured multiple types of PFAS detected.
PFAS has actually been known to be harmful since the 1950s, when 3M discovered it builds up in the blood of mice. Further tests would confirm its presence in the environment, but it wouldn’t be until close to the turn of the century when the public truly learned of the dangers of PFAS following a lawsuit from a West Virginia farmer.
A timely report
This report came just a couple of weeks before an announcement made by the EPA regarding the topic.
In a press release from earlier this week titled “The First Ever PFAS TECH Strategy Spurs Innovation in Research and Technology to Address PFAS,” the EPA announced its new “Technology Evaluation, Coordination, and Harmonization” (TECH) strategy to battle the prevalence of the chemicals in the environment and our bodies.
“The Trump EPA is laser-focused on making America healthy again by developing real and tangible agency-wide strategies to protect Americans from exposure to PFAS,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in the press release. “Technology innovation is essential to accelerating our efforts to address these contaminants, and EPA’s new PFAS TECH strategy will advance scientific discovery, demonstrate the real-world feasibility of advanced technologies, and help reduce PFAS in the environment.”
The TECH strategy looks to bolster research and development into technology that can more readily dispose of PFAS chemicals, as well as provide funding and support for pilot initiatives to test innovative technologies and ensure practical steps to mitigate PFAS exposure and contamination can be communicated to the public and implemented on local levels.
This isn’t the first instance that the Trump administration has announced PFAS remediation as a priority. Back in May, the administration celebrated one year of efforts against PFAS “combat risks and make America healthy again — a nod to the slogan championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that derives from the Make America Great Again slogan. Moreover, the first EPA PFAS Action Plan was released in February 2019, during the first Trump administration.
All of the most recent EPA updates regarding Key EPA Actions to Address PFAS can be found here, with 10 entries in 2026 alone.
That said, remediation may be reactionary. To address PFAS contamination, the solution may in fact be rooted in being proactive.
“While we welcome advancements in technology to clean up PFAS contamination, the most important thing is to prevent toxic forever chemicals,” said a spokesperson from Environment Georgia.
The group says it has seen a decline in PFAS levels in fish in the Great Lakes since manufacturers stopped using the chemicals around a decade ago — not to levels safe to eat, but still an improvement.
Environment Georgia advocates for policies to phase out the use of PFAS, especially from industrial facilities, regulate the selling of biosolids to farmers, and to bolster monitoring programs so the public understands just what is in its water.
