In 2005, after Encana illegally frac’d my community’s drinking water aquifers in 2004, my water suddenly became super slippery to the touch, and caused me to drop and break many dishes while washing them (I wash by hand) cutting myself often because it was so unfamiliar.
I remember finding myself rubbing my fingers under runng slippery tap water, wondering, “What the fuck is this slippery shit? Water does not do this.”
No one, not Wheatland County, not the AER, not Alberta Environment, not the gov’t and most criminal of them all, not Encana, warned us the company intended to illegally frac our drinking water supply into life threatening shit.
Encana/Ovintiv frac’s with PFAS chemicals in USA. Canada does not bother to ask or test what frac’ers inject into Canadian drinking water, good poisoning genocidal colonial raping country that we are, serving polluters first and foremost.
Of course Alberta Environment did not test for PFAS chemicals in my water to find out what was causing the slipperiness; they avoided key indicators of contamination, as is the proud and corrupt Alberta protect polluter way.
‘Even if we stop drinking we will be exposed’: A French region has banned tap water. Is it a warning for the rest of Europe? Forever chemicals have polluted the water supply of 60,000 people, threatening human health, wildlife and the wider ecosystem. But activists say this is just the tip of the Pfas iceberg by Phoebe Weston, 1 Jul 2025, The Guardian
One quiet Saturday night, Sandra Wiedemann was curled up on the sofa when a story broke on TV news: the water coming from her tap could be poisoning her. The 36-year-old, who is breastfeeding her six-month-old son Côme, lives in the quiet French commune of Buschwiller in Saint-Louis, near the Swiss city of Basel. Perched on a hill not far from the Swiss and German borders, it feels like a safe place to raise a child – spacious houses are surrounded by manicured gardens, framed by the wild Jura mountains.
But as she watched the news, this safety felt threatened: Wiedemann and her family use tap water every day, for drinking, brushing her teeth, showering, cooking and washing vegetables. Now, she learned that chemicals she had never heard of were lurking in her body, on her skin, potentially harming her son. “I find it scary,” she says.
“Even if we stop drinking it we will be exposed to it and we can’t really do anything.”
Rural Saint-Louis is close to the borders of Switzerland and Germany, and is the site of France’s biggest ever ban on drinking tap water. Photograph: Stefan Pangritz
The next morning she rushed to the supermarket expecting frantic Covid-style hoarding, but the aisles were calm – most people hadn’t seen the news. Three days later, a letter dropped through her door from the local authority. Drinking water was prohibited, it said, for children under two years old, pregnant or breastfeeding women and people with weak immune systems. The same letter was pushed through the letterbox of about 60,000 other people across 11 communes. The supermarket rush began.
Saint-Louis is now the site of France’s biggest ever ban on drinking tap water. Its at-risk residents will rely on bottled water until at least the end of the year, when authorities hope water filter systems will be installed. Tests of the local tap water showed levels of Pfas – “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, immune dysfunction and reproductive issues – had reached four times the recommended limit. Shelves were stripped bare as families scrambled to stockpile bottles of water to protect loved ones.
The source was a firefighting foam used at the airport since the 1960s, ending only in 2017, according to the joint statement from the local authority and regional health agency. Toxic residues from the foam lingered, filtering through the soil into drinking water and people’s bodies – probably over decades.
Firefighting foam used for decades at the busy Basel Mulhouse Freiburg airport is the source of the pollution. Photograph: Stefan Pangritz
But the situation in Saint-Louis may be only the beginning of drinking water bans across Europe. In January, the EU will start enforcing new limits on Pfa levels. With more than 2,300 sites in Europe exceeding the new safe limits, experts say the ban in France is merely a precursor of more to come.
“I think that we are at the start of the story,” says Séverine Maistre, who lives in Saint-Louis and who used to work in clinical drug trials. She believes that if you look for Pfas, you find them. “Currently we are talking about peaks here and there … [But the chemicals] will be everywhere in France. It will be the same in Germany, in Switzerland, in the UK, and everywhere.”
One month after the letters arrived in Saint-Louis, the panic hasn’t eased. At the supermarket, a man checks out a trolley full of bottles of water and €68 (£58) flashes up on the till. Dozens of other people carry bottled water out with their shopping.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the bottled water also has PFAS in it, possibly even more than the tap water – then there’s the problem with toxic plastic the water is in, and microplastics in water even if in glass! Would be more practical, less polluting and safer to install under sink RO purification systems, or water distillers
“Even if we are not fragile we are scared,” says a 70-year-old woman who did not want to be named. “We are terrorised – this is about water, without which we cannot live.”
People stocked up on bottled water after the Pfas news spread. Photograph: Stefan Pangritz
Clement Luake, a veteran employee at the Leclerc supermarket in Saint-Louis, says he has never seen anything like it in his 30 years in the job. “It was massive,” he says. Normally he loads 63 pallets of water on to shelves each week, but now it’s in excess of 120. “There are four trucks coming every week,” says Luake, as a colleague helps him heave large bottles on to shelves.And how much toxic wasteful plastic pollution now caused by the contaminated drinking water? Everything humans do to try to mitigate our stupidity, greed and ugly over population, makes things worse.
Local authorities estimate nearly 3,000 people in the Haut-Rhin region fall into “vulnerable” categories. Each will receive a single €80 payment to help cover the cost of bottled water. But for people such as Wiedemann, the threat goes far beyond compensation. “It doesn’t just concern sensitive people – Pfas don’t choose who they attack,” she says. Wiedemann moved to the area in 2020, and has since had two miscarriages and was diagnosed with endometriosis, after experiencing increasingly painful periods.
“The health problems started when I arrived here. I am wondering if there is a link, but I could never prove that,” she says. Others share similar concerns. Many have been drinking contaminated water for decades, unaware.
Pfas – short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – refer to thousands of chemicals valued for their non-stick, indestructible properties. They’re used in everything from cooking pans to waterproof jackets, food packaging, firefighting foams and electronics. They don’t break down naturally and can persist in the environment for centuries. Today, they are found in the blood of nearly every person on Earth.
There is no official testing of residents’ blood under way to understand the potential health impacts. Bruno Wollenschneider, head of Adra (Association de Défense des Riverains de l’Aéroport de Bâle Mulhouse) – a 200-member residents’ association – organised his own testing and sent 10 blood samples from Adra members to a lab.
Bruno Wollenschneider, who sent blood samples from 10 residents’ association members in Saint-Louis to a lab for analysis. Photograph: Stefan Pangritz
The person with the highest had 22 micrograms per litre (mcg/l) of blood. The average was 14.9mcg/l, which would make people in Saint-Louis among the most contaminated 5 to 10% in France, according to public health data from 2019. Long-term adverse health effects are possible for people with levels above 6.9mcg/l of blood, according to the European Food Safety Authority. “The state is there to protect us,” says Wollenschneider. “If people had been warned by the authorities, we could have protected ourselves, instead of continuing to drink water.”In all my life’s experiences, the state is there to protect the rich, corrupt raping judges, priests and politicians, and polluters, never ordinary people
To remedy the problem, the local authority plans to install new water treatment plants at a cost of €20m, and a further €600,000 a year to run. From 2026, water bills will probably rise to help pay for it.
As well as posing risks to human health, Pfas in a water supply threaten entire ecosystems. This is because chemicals build up in the tissues of aquatic organisms in a similar way to humans.
American alligators are suffering from unhealed and infected lesions in North Carolina in the US, linked to Pfas exposure. Photograph: Daniel Dempster Photography/Alamy
In North Carolina, alligators are suffering from unhealed and infected lesions, fewer sea turtle hatchlings are emerging in the north Pacific, and in Wisconsin, tree swallows are failing to produce young. Even in remote areas, such as the Arctic, hooded seals and their pups are suffering from thyroid issues. All these animals had experienced high levels of exposure to Pfas, researchers found.
More than 600 species on every continent are at risk of harm, according to a map illustrating how damaging chemicals are appearing in ecosystems everywhere. Impacts cascade down an ecosystem – sensitive species could decline, while those that are tolerant do better, which can change the way ecosystems function.
At the centre of the crisis is the Basel Mulhouse Freiburg airport – 2km away from the supermarket – which is an international hub serving passengers from France, Germany and Switzerland. The sound of aircraft taking off can be heard more than a hundred times a day.
Below the airport’s new terminal is the groundwater the chemicals have been leaching into. Photograph: Stefan Pangritz
The new terminal covers the ground where firefighting foams containing Pfas were used for decades because they are effective at tackling kerosene fires. Up to 15 metres below that is the groundwater these chemicals have been leaching into. Wollenschneider has lived within five minutes of the airport his whole life. As head of Adra – which was created in 1988 to fight airport expansion – he now finds himself fighting on a more personal front: for clean drinking water.
“In France, we had faith in water – but that’s broken,” says Wollenschneider.
“Authorities lied to us, they tricked us,” he says, referring to the fact that authorities didn’t tell people about Pfas contamination for years after it was first identified in government data. He is spearheading the struggle for information, and fighting for the airport to foot the bill for the €20m clean-up cost.
“The airport is responsible. Water is a public good. Not for long. I believe much contamination of public water all over the world was/is intentional, same as frac’ers removing masses of drinking water and surface water from the hydrogeological cycle permanently to drive up the value of water. Billionaires are drooling and ejaculating over the $billions they plan to profit rape off of the world’s dwindling safe water supplies. The last thing is the law to force the authorities to act and make the airport pay – we don’t have the choice,” he says. He believes this case could set a legal precedent. “It is the first time in France where a commercial airport is known to be the cause of pollution. There are likely others,” says Wollenschneider.
Currently, there are no legally enforceable limits for Pfas in drinking water across Europe. But that changes in January 2026, when the EU will impose a threshold of 0.1 micrograms per litre. The restrictions in Saint-Louis have been introduced in anticipation of this limit. The turmoil in this corner of France is a preview of what could happen elsewhere, and also raises the question of who will foot the bill for a potentially very expensive clean-up.the poorest of the poor, of fucking course, as usual
Across Europe more than 23,000 sites are contaminated with Pfas – either in water, soil or living organisms, according to the Forever Pollution Map, which is maintained by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Of those, 2,300 sites are higher than the forthcoming EU regulations allow and considered hazardous.
A readout of the water analysis of Hésingue, a village near the Basel Mulhouse Freiburg airport, showing the concentrations of Pfas. Photograph: Stefan Pangritz
The contaminated sites are littered across Europe. There are 34 communes in France where Pfas in drinking water exceed the new EU limit. In the Lyon region alone, 160,000 people in 50 towns have been drinking water above the new EU limits. In Veneto, Italy, up to 350,000 people were exposed to Pfas from a chemical plant that operated from 1964 to 2018. In Antwerp, Belgium, about half of the people living within 5km of a plant operated by the multinational 3M have elevated Pfas levels in their blood.
In Saint-Louis, records suggest the government agency for groundwater first found records of high levels of Pfas in the water in 2017, according to data from the CNRS. Several government agencies had access to this data, but it appears the information wasn’t acted upon.Standard gov’t practice. Only raping kids and profit raping by the rich is protected
Thierry Litzler, vice-president of Saint-Louis urban area, who is in charge of water for the district, said he heard about high levels of Pfas in the water in October 2023. “Things went quickly from the moment we had the information,” he says.
In response to why information from 2017 was not passed on to his office, he says: “To know why a state service did do – or did not do – more than eight years ago, for me, it’s not the subject of the moment … I do not have the right to judge it today.”Sure you do, you deflecting fucker
A banner protesting over Pfas during a demonstration against a factory extension in Lyon, France, in September 2024. Photograph: Matthieu Delaty/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images
Now, he believes the government will act faster because there is a roadmap in place. “We were the first. We were the pioneers – at the time, our agency had to wait, we didn’t have instruction to act,” Bullshit! Protecting life from being poisoned by the rich is paramount. You could have spoken out, without instruction to act! You are a cowardly polluter protector! No one gave me instructions to speak out, or how to, after I discovered Encana/Ovintiv, with full blessings by gov’t and our water and energy “regulators,” had intentionally frac’d and contaminated my community’s drinking water supply. I spoke out, because someone had to and because our so called regulators were cowardly lying bullying frac headssays Litzler.
There is no criminal or civil case against the airport, because the foams they used were certified at the time.All the more reason Mr. Litzlera needed to warn the people immediately, as soon as he knew Manuela Witzig, head of communications and public affairs at the airport, says they are “cooperating with the authorities in charge of investigating the case”. Investigations and remediation work are under way to work out where contaminated areas are. She adds that the airport “intends to contribute financially to resolving the situation” but did not give details.
What is unfolding in Saint-Louis is just the beginning of a Europe-wide battle over water contamination once EU regulations are in place. Calls are growing to phase out Pfas entirely. In the meantime, people across France are mobilising to demand authorities release information about Pfas, prioritise their health, and make polluters pay. It will never happen. I’ve learned the hard way, authorities are too lazy, stupid, selfish and not interested in the health and well being of the people that pay their wages and pensions. “We are not isolated,” says Wollenschneider.
This article was amended on 1 July 2025. An earlier version used the Greek letter mu as part of the abbreviation for micrograms, but a technical issue means this character cannot be seen by readers viewing the story on a mobile phone. The abbreviation mcg has been used instead.
—
Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
Refer also to:
2025 06 20: Glass bottles found to contain more microplastics than plastic bottles
Editors’ notes Drinks in glass bottles had five to 50 times more microplastic fragments than in plastic bottles.
Drinks including water, soda, beer and wine sold in glass bottles contain more microplastics than those in plastic bottles, according to a surprising study released by France’s food safety agency Friday.
Researchers have detected the tiny, mostly invisible pieces of plastic throughout the world, from in the air we breathe to the food we eat, as well as riddled throughout human bodies.
There is still no direct evidence that this preponderance of plastic is harmful to human health, but a burgeoning field of research is aiming to measure its spread.
Reality check:
End Reality Check
Guillaume Duflos, research director at French food safety agency ANSES, told AFP the team sought to “investigate the quantity of microplastics in different types of drinks sold in France and examine the impact different containers can have.”
The researchers found an average of around 100 microplastic particles per liter in glass bottles of soft drinks, lemonade, iced tea and beer. That was five to 50 times higher than the rate detected in plastic bottles or metal cans.
“We expected the opposite result,” Ph.D. student Iseline Chaib, who conducted the research, told AFP.
“We then noticed that in the glass, the particles emerging from the samples were the same shape, color and polymer composition—so therefore the same plastic—as the paint on the outside of the caps that seal the glass bottles,” she said.
The paint on the caps also had “tiny scratches, invisible to the naked eye, probably due to friction between the caps when there were stored,” the agency said in a statement.
This could then “release particles onto the surface of the caps,” it added. For water, both flat and sparkling, the amount of microplastic was relatively low in all cases.
Wine fine
For water, both flat and sparkling, the amount of microplastic was relatively low in all cases, ranging from 4.5 particles per liter in glass bottles to 1.6 particles in plastic.
Wine also contained few microplastics—even glass bottles with caps. Duflos said the reason for this discrepancy “remains to be explained.”
Soft drinks however contained around 30 microplastics per liter, lemonade 40 and beer around 60.
Because there is no reference level for a potentially toxic amount of microplastics, it was not possible to say whether these figures represent a health risk, ANSES said.
But drink manufacturers could easily reduce the amount of microplastics shed by bottle caps, it added.
The agency tested a cleaning method involving blowing the caps with air, then rinsing them with water and alcohol, which reduced contamination by 60%.
The study released by ANSES was published online in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis last month.
2025 05 14: Trump narrows, delays ‘forever chemical’ rule
The Big Story: Trump EPA narrows, delays PFAS drinking water regulation, The Environmental Protection Agency is narrowing and delaying its drinking water regulations for toxic “forever chemicals.”
Exposure to these chemicals, also known as PFAS, has been linked to health issues including cancer, kidney and thyroid issues, weakened immune systems and fertility issues.
In 2024, the Biden administration set the first-ever limits on six types of PFAS. It said at the time that its action would reduce exposure to PFAS for about 100 million people, preventing 9,600 deaths and nearly 30,000 illnesses in the coming decades.
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday it will “rescind and reconsider” filtration requirements for four of those six PFAS. For the two PFAS that will still need to be filtered out, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is delaying the requirements to do so by two years.
Now, public water systems with just two types of PFAS — PFOA and PFOS — will be required to filter out those chemicals by 2031.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin described the changes as “common-sense flexibility.”
Other types of PFAS — those known as GenX, PFBS, PFHxS and PFNA, — will be newly rescinded from the rule.Watch the documentary below, released on the same date as this article.
Asked about the changes to the rule during a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Zeldin indicated the agency may not ultimately exclude those four substances.
“There was an issue as it relates to the four other chemicals, and that’s something that we are going to be going through a process, but that doesn’t mean that it gets weaker.”
Environmental activists recoiled at the changes announced by the EPA, including Emily Donovan, whose North Carolina community has faced GenX contamination.
“This current administration promised voters it would ‘Make America Healthy Again’ but rescinding part of the PFAS drinking water standards does no such thing,” Donovan said.
***
THIS DOCUMENTARY IS EXCELLENT:
How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet 54:08 Min. by Veritasium, May 14, 2025
The biggest chemical cover up in history. PFAS has polluted the entire global water system. Now, potentially dangerous forever chemicals are being found in the entire US population. Go to https://groundnews.com/Ve to get all sides of every story. Subscribe to save 40% off the unlimited Vantage Plan through our link.
If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically – https://ve42.co/SnatomsV
0:00 Killed by Fridges
5:27 Teflon and The Manhattan Project
7:59 Teflon is Tricky
11:37 The Teflon Revolution
13:27 Earl Tennant’s Farm
17:34 Inside DuPont
20:28 Fluoride In Drinking Water
25:00 It’s bigger than that
29:23 What is PFAS?
35:56 How much PFAS is in Derek’s blood?
37:56 How forever chemicals get into your blood
46:18 Removing PFAS from drinking water
49:30 Can you lower your PFAS levels?
A huge thank you to Rob Bilott for his time and expertise. Check out his fantastic book: Bilott, R. (2019). Exposure. Simon and Schuster – https://ve42.co/7R
Rob’s story also inspired the 2019 film: Dark Waters.
Thank you to Doctor Mike for giving us a medical perspective on PFAS! Check him out at @DoctorMike
Thank you to Henrik Haggeman and the Puraffinity team, as well as Andrew Patterson and Eurofins, for doing the PFAS testing.
Thank you to Leslie Hamilton, Johns Hopkins APL, Alex Conrad, Imperial College London, Jana Avgustini, and Matija Krvavica for their help on the project.
PFAS Tools:
PFAS Blood Test – https://ve42.co/PFASTest
What’s My Exposure? via www-pfas.pfas-exchange.org – https://ve42.co/myexposure
Serum PFAS Calculator via ics.uci.edu – https://ve42.co/pfascalculator
Interactive Map: PFAS Contamination Crisis via www.ewg.org – https://ve42.co/pfasmapinteractive
The Map of Forever Pollution via foreverpollution.eu – https://ve42.co/foreverpollutionmap
Australian PFAS Chemicals Map via pfas.australianmap.net – https://ve42.co/australianpfasmap
References:
References can be found here – https://ve42.co/PFASReferences
Images & Video:
Image and video references can be found here – https://ve42.co/PFASVisuals
3D Models:
“Low Poly Base Mesh-530 Tri” (https://skfb.ly/onsxE) by Huge_Man
“Blood Vessel” (https://skfb.ly/owHJX) by IMU University
“Generic Factory” (https://skfb.ly/onQpR) by assetfactory
“Lowpoly People + Waldo” (https://skfb.ly/6zqCE) by Loïc Norgeot
PFOA Molecule via PubChem – https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/comp…
2024: Dr. Sandra Steingraber on PFAS and PCBs.
2017: Australia Esso Longford plant: Toxic PFAS chemicals found in dam and groundwater
etc etc etc