(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Environmental Protection Commission approved more funding today (Wednesday) for the E-P-A required tests of drinking water for the chemicals know as PFAS. Kathleen Lee of the D-N-R Water Quality Bureau says it started with voluntary sampling while they set up the rules, and now have approved permits for the regular sampling.
“And the sampling can be done no later than April of 2027. And the vast majority of our sampling will be done by January,” she says. The E-P-A started requiring samples in 2024 and Lee says it took some time to get things running on the state level. “E-P-A is always great at telling us that implementing a new rule won’t take additional staff, but we actually had to hire a retired permit writer to assist us with this project,” she says.
Water facilities serving more than 10-thousand people have to test four times a year, and those serving under 10-thousand have to test twice a year. The state commission approve nearly 400-thousand dollars for additional testing, which will come from an E-P-A grant. Lee says the early testing shows PFAS found in Iowa water is below national projections.
“I can tell you nationally, E-P-A estimates about ten percent of all water supplies. will have PFAS detections. In Iowa so far, it’s running about three to five percent,” she says. Lee says the amount of future water testing will be quarterly, annual, or tri-annual based on the results of the initial testing. “The vast majority of systems will be assigned tri-annual monitoring or once every three years based on their initial monitoring, and they will need to pay for the compliance monitoring themselves,” she says.
The total amount budgeted for the PFAS testing with the additional money added will be more than one-point-four million dollars.
