PFPeA
Overview
Perfluoropentanoic acid, a short-chain PFAS with no federal drinking-water limit. It is one of the compounds EPA added to national monitoring specifically to find out how widespread PFAS contamination is.
In Florida, PFPeA was found in 127 community water systems serving about 11,663,452 people. Nobody has set a legal limit for it, so no reading here counts as an exceedance and no utility is required to do anything about it.
Where it comes from: Breakdown product of longer-chain PFAS; industrial and consumer coatings.
The standards
Enforceable. A utility must stay at or under this.
Health-based, not enforceable. Often lower than the limit, sometimes zero.
EPA's Integrated Risk Information System published a final toxicological review of perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA) in April 2023, the only short-chain perfluorocarboxylic acid it has assessed. Florida Water Report applies that assessment to the short-chain acids that have no assessment of their own. Source: EPA IRIS Toxicological Review of Perfluorohexanoic Acid (PFHxA) and Related Salts, EPA/635/R-23/027F, April 2023.
Health effects the EPA associates with it: No federal drinking-water limit has been set. EPA links PFAS exposure generally to decreased immune response, increased cholesterol, and developmental effects.
The health goal is set on health alone. The legal limit is set as close to it as is technically and economically feasible, so treatment cost and available technology are written into the number a utility is measured against. A system at or under the limit is meeting the standard it is required to meet. Both numbers are shown so the distance between them is visible.
What removes it
Short-chain, so reverse osmosis or anion exchange rather than carbon alone. Carbon does capture it, but exhausts sooner than it would against longer-chain PFAS.
Treatment guidance describes the methods generally used for this contaminant. What your own tap actually carries depends on your plumbing and your service line as much as on the utility, which is what a test at the house tells you and an annual report cannot.
Where in Florida
Highest reported levels
Showing the 25 highest of 127 systems that reported PFPeA.
Data Sources
These figures describe water as delivered by each utility, not what your home’s plumbing adds after it arrives. Informational; not a substitute for testing your own tap.