Flathead Lake Biostation Director Jim Elser says when they started to look for PFAS at sites in the area he was hoping for the best.
"My hope was that we wouldn't find anything, that we won't detect anything, really. And then we could say, ‘okay, we don't have to worry about that so much around here. Maybe we should check back in a few years and see if anything has changed,’" he says.
But, that wasn’t what happened. Samples from tributaries and sites on Flathead Lake identified multiple PFAS compounds, three of which were above laboratory reporting limits. This comes after the recent identification of PFAS in the Fort Peck Reservoir as well as the East Gallatin, Missouri and Clark Fork rivers.
Elser says none of the PFAS they found with statutory thresholds surpassed levels that indicate degraded drinking water quality.
"This is more about raising awareness than raising alarm," Elser says. "I think we need to be aware that these are out there, and find out more."
Current research shows a gap between where PFAS are confirmed and where they likely exist. One study found 2,200 known sites and over 80,000 presumptive PFAS sites around the country.
"This is just really the tip of the iceberg for many states," says Jamie DeWitt, who studies PFAS impacts on human health at Oregon State University.
DeWitt is speaking at a recent panel hosted by Montana Environmental Information Center where
experts pushed for proactive measures to mitigate PFAS contamination.
"If you have a continuation of exposure, there is the potential for PFAS to build up in your blood over time, and when PFAS build up in blood, that increases the likelihood that they're going to interact with molecules within your body to produce adverse health outcomes," she says.
Back on Flathead Lake, Elser says, for these reasons, it’s important to better understand where PFAS are in Montana. But barriers like cost of equipment and access to labs delay their ability to gather more data. He says agencies don’t have the funding or staff to do wide-scale surveys either.
