How many ‘forever chemicals’ are actually in NZ’s water?

The largest amount of testing for levels of ‘forever chemicals’ in the country’s water will soon be carried out by researchers..

The researchers will test more areas, more wells and for more types of the compounds - which number in the thousands - than the last time testing was carried out four years ago.

The Australian government has moved to sue 3M - one of the US makers of the PFAS chemicals - for more than $2 billion in damages.

The New Zealand government has declined to comment if it would consider following that lead.

Water wells were last tested here for the toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in a four-yearly cycles of tests in 2022.

Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) acting manager of hazardous substances applications Dr Shaun Presow said levels were low.

“I’m still relatively relaxed about PFAS generally, but it is useful to do this testing on a broader scale to get a better… sense of the background of PFAS in New Zealand.

“We’re doing this testing now to get a baseline of what is out there in the environment.”

Global research has linked the compounds - more than 10,000 of them and proliferating as they are man-made - with a virtually unbreakable carbon-fluorine bond to a range of serious health problems including cancer.

The US in 2024 imposed much stricter limits on six of the compounds than New Zealand has, although the Trump Administration is moving to wind those back.

Some PFAS testing last year in the Waikato River’s drinking water intakes and wastewater outflows showed little contamination. But the Onehunga water treatment plant has been shut down for years by PFAS contamination.

Not a change of heart

Presow said the EPA, regional councils and Crown researchers were planning where and what to test for later this year.

They would range more widely than in 2022, when 131 wells were sampled out of thousands nationwide.

“We’re expecting it will be more and with a better geographic distribution.”

The authority conceded at the time that it was a limited baseline, but rejected a recommendation to do more investigating.

“I wouldn’t describe it as a change of heart,” Presow said on Wednesday.

“At that time, PFAS we weren’t so concerned about…. At that time, we did have more limited monitoring money available. We have freed up some more.”

Some of the low levels found last time turned out to be due to PFAS contamination of testing gear, so they would learn from that.

“We are on to that.”

The EPA said the 2022 results “showed there was very little contamination of groundwater in the areas tested, and so a low level of risk from these chemicals”.

The standards for safe levels of PFAS in water are up for review next year.

In New Zealand and Australia, contamination was centred around defence bases and airports that used firefighting foams with PFAS in them for years, despite a ban in NZ more than a decade ago.

Australia has fared much worse - the federal government paid out more than $400m several years ago to tens of thousands of claimants, many of whom had lived near seven contaminated defence bases.

Its case against 3M is the largest legal claim ever brought by the Australian government.

US PFAS makers exported the compounds and profited from them, but the massive pollution payouts they have agreed to in recent years are confined to the US, including the largest: $16 billion by 3M in 2023.

Attorney-General Chris Bishop said he was aware of reports of the legal claim by the Australian government.

He said it was not appropriate for him to comment on a case before the Australian courts, and he did not propose to comment publicly on what the NZ government “may or may not be considering at this time”.

Costs here include the ongoing Onehunga shutdown and $12m to pipe water into Ohakea, where a NZ Defence Force firepit was at the epicentre of years of contamination into the groundwater.

Reports in 2019 said in the worst case the PFAS plume would persist for more than a century in Ohakea’s groundwater, spreading downstream from Bulls at a rate of 50-100 metres per year.

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