Star Tribune
There’s new hope for eliminating PFAS from tap water: pitcher filters
In the still-unfolding global environmental tragedy of “forever chemical” pollution, one tiny bright spot has emerged: some kitchen-counter water filter pitchers can eliminate the harmful PFAS contaminants from drinking water.
That’s a sip of good news for residents of an estimated 2,800 communities around the country facing contaminated public water systems, according to the Environmental Working Group, which announced its findings Tuesday along with a new kitchen water filter guide for consumers.
And it’s a surprise, said Sydney Evans, senior science analyst for the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
“This is the first time that a third-party study has shown that some of these countertop pitcher filters … can basically eliminate PFAS,” Evans said. “I really didn’t know what we were going to see.”
More involved treatments include granular activated carbon filter systems, and reverse osmosis systems that run water through a special membrane. Either can be installed at the sink or where the water enters a home, although such whole-house systems can cost thousands of dollars.
PFAS is short for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a family of widely used chemicals with a super-tight fluorine and carbon bond. They’re found in firefighting foams and countless products including common household ones such as carpet and tooth floss, and are leaking from landfills and found nearly everywhere in the environment where they persist. They have been linked to numerous health effects such as ulcerative colitis, decreased fertility, thyroid disease, testicular and kidney cancer and low birthweight.
The man-made chemicals were pioneered by Maplewood-based 3M Co., which recently agreed to pay up to $12.5 billion to settle claims that PFAS polluted municipal drinking water systems around the country and to clean it up. It has agreed to stop making all PFAS in 2025.
EWG tested 10 countertop filtered pitchers for sale on the market for 25 different PFAS. It is recommending four that it said removed 100% or nearly 100% of the toxic substances. The prices on the top four ranged from $25 to $350. There are additional costs to replace filters over time.
The group’s top choice is the Travel Berkey Water Filter. A large metal countertop urn rather than a plastic pitcher, it’s the most expensive of the four but has a filter that lasts more than eight years, which is an unusually long time. The other three are models from Zero Water, Clearly Filtered and Epic Water Filter.
Performance among the 10 varied greatly. The six-cup Brita filter pitcher the group tested, for example, reduced only 66% of the PFAS. Some of the packages have claims to reduce PFOA and PFOS — the two oldest and most notorious types of PFAS — but did not claim to eliminate them, Evans said. All of them reduced PFAS “to some extent,” she said.
The Minnesota Department of Health can’t speak to the results because it doesn’t test consumer products like the pitchers, said agency spokeswoman Andrea Ahneman. She noted that all water-treatment systems need regular maintenance and will lose their effectiveness over time if they aren’t maintained. Minnesotans connected to community public water systems can check their water for PFAS at the Interactive Dashboard for PFAS Testing in Drinking Water. The agency also provides a Home Water Treatment Fact Sheet.
EWG said it’s not clear what the active ingredient is in all the pitcher filters because some claim it’s proprietary. Some contain small versions of granular activated carbon filters. Those “GAC” filters are familiar to many people in Washington County, ground zero for PFAS contamination in Minnesota where the state has supplied free whole-house GAC water filter systems to people who rely on private wells polluted with PFAS.
The effectiveness of kitchen filter pitchers provides a good option for some people wanting to take action but is no solution or substitute to larger community efforts to get PFAS out of drinking water, Evans said. Clean water should be a right, not a privilege, she added.
“It is so unfair to expect people to be responsible for their own water treatment,” Evans said.
In March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed for the first time strict enforceable limits on six PFAS in drinking water, set to be finalized next year. The standards will require water utilities to test and treat for PFAS to those levels.
When the Minnesota Supreme Court this week declined to hear an appeal by the University of St. Thomas regarding the environmental impact of its new hockey/basketball arena under construction, neighbor and arena foe Dan Kennedy said the “ethical” thing for the university to do was stop construction until neighbor concerns are addressed.
Not going to happen, university officials said Thursday.
While a public review of a revised Environmental Assessment Worksheet continues through Nov. 7, construction of the 5,000-seat Lee and Penny Anderson Arena continues. In an e-mail Thursday, a university spokesman said the arena is expected to be completed in fall 2025.
“The University of St. Thomas is aware of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision to deny its petition to appeal and is reviewing the potential impacts of this decision,” an emailed statement from St. Thomas said. “Last week, the City of St. Paul published an updated EAW for public comment, and that process will continue. Construction of the Lee & Penny Anderson Arena will also continue, as permitted by law.”
But Kennedy said he believes that decision is not only wrong, but illegal. Because the state Court of Appeals this summer ruled the project’s first environmental review was inadequate, its site plans and building permits are invalid, said the president of Advocates for Responsible Development.
“We need somebody to specifically tell the University of St. Thomas that they must comply with the law,” Kennedy said. “This is an institution of higher learning, with a law school. They should comply with the law.”
Kennedy said he thought the Minnesota Court of Appeals had insisted on exactly that. In August, the appellate court ordered the city and university to conduct a new Environmental Assessment Worksheet. The previous assessment didn’t do enough to study the arena’s potential harm to the neighborhood’s parking, traffic and air quality, the court ruled.
“The reason why is that more sunlight in the morning time helps reinforce waking up, and having less light in the evening is less stimulation,” he said. “So when we’re winding down, preparing for sleep, having fewer hours of sunlight in the evening can help promote that process of falling asleep.”
Akingbola acknowledges that it can be sad to walk out of work or school when it’s already dark out, but in the long run, standard time is the way to go.
The U.S. already tried daylight savings year round in 1974
Despite the medical advice, there have been calls in recent years to make daylight savings time permanent.
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, tried to pass a bill as recently as 2021 to make daylight savings time permanent, but it did not pass the Legislature.
The U.S. tried once before. According to Minnesota Star Tribune archives, due to an energy crisis, President Richard Nixon passed a law in January 1974 that made daylight savings a year-round thing.
A month into it, the Minneapolis Tribune ran an article saying there were calls to reverse the decision because there were more accidents in the pre-dawn darkness, particularly involving school children waiting for the bus. Under daylight savings time in January, sunrise wasn’t until well after 8 a.m. in Minnesota.
Karl-Anthony Towns may be in New York City, but his heart is in Minnesota.
On Wednesday night, Towns had some sweet seats for a Billie Eilish show at Madison Square Garden with his partner, Jordyn Woods, when she caught him watching the Timberwolves play the Chicago Bulls in a preseason game on his phone. Her video, posted to her Instagram story, made rounds on social media Thursday.
In the video, flames are literally spewing out from Eilish’s stage, lights are flashing all around and others in the crowd are head bobbing. And there is Towns, holding his phone in both hands and muttering to himself as the Timberwolves are down 88-75 late in the third quarter in a meaningless game.
“I promise he was enjoying the concert,” Woods wrote in the video’s caption.
The Wolves would go on to lose that game, 125-123. A nail-biter.
Towns’ trade to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle and others stunned the NBA world and all of Minnesota, where he was a beloved player for nine seasons and a leader on a team rapidly ascending toward championship contention.
“It was a lot of emotions,” Towns said. “Some amazing moments and times in nine years of my life in Minnesota, a place that I’ve called home. Guys who are not just teammates to me but brothers. We were like brothers. It definitely was a wild day, definitely coming to work.”
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