This blog shares information collated over the past few years concerning PFAS detections in Australian drinking water supplies. It is not an authoritative list, as a national overview has not been published for 13 years. It is also a depressing reality that there has not been a nationally co-ordinated monitoring program for PFAS chemicals in drinking water. Why?

Australia's only national study was published in April 2011, with 62 samples taken from tap water from 34 locations between August and November 2010. The highest levels detected were PFOS at 16ng/L* and PFHxS and PFOA at 13ng/L and 9.7ng/L respectively. In terms of PFAS exposure via drinking water, the study estimated that on average 2-3% of PFAS exposure was from drinking water with a maximum of 22% and 24%. Recent research by the University of New South Wales has recently added to the debate: _”Prof. O’Carroll stresses that these PFAS traces are found in source water, such as dams, and not drinking water itself – drinking water goes through treatment plants, some of which are designed to reduce the amount of chemicals such as PFAS in our water before it comes
out of the tap. But some water providers – for example, Sydney Water – don’t routinely measure the broad range of PFAS potentially in our drinking water, says Prof. O’Carroll...“But I certainly think that monitoring PFAS levels and making the data easily
available is worthwhile.”

*ng/L = parts per trillion (or one thousandth of one drop in an Olympic size swimming pool.

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Image of Norfolk Island: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/85914/norfolk-island. Note that the source of PFAS in Norfolk Island drinking water is the airport located on the south of the island.

PFAS monitoring by the water industry in Australia is a relatively recent phenomenon.  The Department of Defence knew as early as as 1991 that fire fighting foams were potentially dangerous. On the 30th of April 2003 the Australian National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS) released an alert recommending that PFOS/PFOA products such as AFFF be restricted to essential use only, and that AFFF foam should not be used for fire training/testing purpose. PFOS was also listed under the Stockholm Convention in 2009 (with PFOA listed in 2019 and PFHxS listed in 2022). Yet even after these events no water authority in Australia was testing for PFAS chemicals.

The Defence Department had started monitoring for PFAS in groundwater wells at Tindal (near Katherine) in the Northern Territory in May 2006 so they obviously knew that there was a potential problem emerging. In December 2011 the Defence Department confirmed that elevated PFAS levels were leaving Williamtown base and by early 2013 the Department was also warning people at Oakey in Queensland not to drink from underground water due to PFAS contamination from fire fighting foams used at the base between 1970 to 2005.

The earliest PFAS monitoring in a drinking water catchment by an Australian water authority appears to have been conducted by Melbourne Water in January 2011 with levels of PFOA detected in raw water (8ng/L*) at the offtake to Sugarloaf Reservoir on the Yarra River. Five positive samples of PFOA and PFOS were also detected at Lilydale Sewerage Treatment Plant (located 6.5km upstream of Sugarloaf offtake) in September 2010. Sydney Water appear not to have conducted any PFAS testing until January 2019 at 6 locations on the Hawkesbury River near North Richmond Water Filtration Plant. PFHxS + PFOS levels in North Richmond drinking water averaged 7.56ng/L from 10 samples. PFOA levels averaged 3.04ng/L.

(A flurry of testing by Sydney Water also occurred in June 2024 after reports in the Sydney Morning Herald revealed a lack of testing across Australia. The June 2024 test results, published in August 2024, revealed that the highest levels in PFAS in Sydney's drinking water were recorded at Cascade Water Filtration Plant Blackheath PFOS 15.5ng/L + PFHxS 13.6ng/L [Total PFOS+PFHxS=29.1ng/L] and Cascades Water Filtration Plant Katoomba 16.4ng/L + PFHxS 14.2ng/L [Total PFOS+PFHxS=30.6ng/L]). WaterNSW shut down Medlow Dam in late August 2024, due to the contamination with PFAS+PFHxS levels in untreated water supposedly at 90ng/L.

In September 2024, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that PFAS levels in Greaves Creek, downstream of Lake Medlow but upstream of Lake Greaves had reached 14040ng/L. PFAS levels of 3700ng/L were reported at Adams Creek, just downstream of Medlow Bath.

What is the source of the PFAS entering Medlow Dam? Some of the Medlow Dam catchment (Youngs Creek and Adams Creek) takes in "urban" areas of Medlow Bath. Perhaps fire fighting foam used in the past to dowse car crashes on the highway near Medlow Bath or perhaps PFAS used at Medlow Bath fire station?

Because of the recent understanding of the risks associated with PFAS, drinking water guidelines in Australia were not published by the National Health and Medical Research Council until 2016, even though the public had been exposed to PFAS chemicals for decades. 

Drinking water guidelines levels were then reduced substantially in the space of a year, by the National Health and Medical Research Council, after advice from the Department of Health and Food Standards Australia New Zealand with PFOS+PFHxS guideline levels set 7.5 times and PFOA levels set almost 9 times lower in April 2017. A flurry of testing occurred by some water authorites across Australia in 2017 (including sewerage treatment plant water and biosolids).

Despite guideline levels being scientifically approved on a national level, there was some doubt in health and water bureaucracies that PFAS was a problem at all (see below).

SA Water Daily Incidents and Hazards Summary Report Page 8 Wed 01 Nov 2017 "Drinking Water PFAS was discussed at the enHealth* regulators group. Utilities are being urged not to sample for PFAS unless a risk assessment identifies a credible potential source, e.g. PFAS use in catchment. DHA recommends that SA Water adopt this approach and only consider PFAS testing where a risk
assessment has shown a need for testing." [*enHealth is The Environmental Health Standing Committee of the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care].

This SA Water document released under FoI shows that from May 15 2017 the SA Department of Health, with advice from enHealth did not think that SA Water should test for PFAS chemicals as they believed that the risks were low due to their water supply catchment being located away from known pollution sources. This SA Health decision also included water released from waste water treatment plants and biosolids which have been found elsewhere as being highly polluted with PFAS chemicals.

There is no doubt that scientific understanding regarding the health impacts is still evolving, but 'alarm bells' concerning PFAS have been ringing for many years. The latest research (April 2024)  is now implying that PFAS chemicals raise "mortality from cardiovascular disease (in particular, heart diseases and ischemic heart disease) and malignant neoplastic diseases, including kidney cancer and testicular cancer."

In April 2024, the US EPA announced new guideline levels for 4 PFAS chemicals. The graph above shows that the 2017 Australian Guidelines for PFOA are 140 times higher than the new US guidelines (and 1250 times lower than the Australian 2016 guideline). The Australian guidelines do not have levels specified for PFNA and HFPO-DA (Gen X) chemicals. The European Union have even weaker guidelines: "... the European Union (EU), Sweden, Denmark and some states in the U.S. have also established single guideline limits for PFAS in drinking water. For example, the EU has limits of 100 ng/L for the sum of 20 PFAS and 500 ng/L for the sum of all PFAS in drinking water."

A confidential note to the South Australian Minister for Water on 24/4/2017, claiming that there are no known health effects on humans from PFAS, written about 3 weeks after the announcement that the Australian Government had reduced the 'safe' level of PFOS by 7.5 times, due primarily to potential health concerns! There is also no mention that for years SA Water had been providing biosolids to farms sourced from sewerage treatment plants. STP's are a major source of PFAS contamination.

Australian detections in drinking Water 

FoE has compiled a database of about 450 detections from 66 locations of PFAS chemicals in drinking water supplies across the country. Many of the detections have occurred in groundwater, whilst most other samples have occurred in raw water prior to treatment, but nevertheless the information is a useful indicator and certain trends become apparent after assessing the information.

The average level for all PFOS+PFHxS detections is 1480ng/L, with a mean of 10ng/L. The database is however heavily biased towards the high detections, with 7% of the detections (>1400ng/L) accounting for 94.4% total amount of PFOS+PFHxS. The database is also biased towards detections near the Williamtown RAAF base in New South Wales. In fact 74% of the PFOS+PFHxS (by volume) on the database is from near Williamtown, due mainly to the excessive testing and publishing of results from Williamtown.

The highest levels of PFAS contamination in Australia have occurred south of the Williamtown RAAF Base in New South Wales. The levels in the image above were recorded in 2016. Higher levels were recorded in 2017. Note that 100ug/L is equal to 100,000ng/L. Many people living in this area are reliant on bore water. This water was used for drinking and showering, swimming pools, home gardens etc. Animals such as chicken and cattle have also been impacted, as have a range of wild animals. The Pump Station pins relate to old bores used for water production by Hunter Water. Stations 7 & 9 were isolated from production in 2014 and the other bores had been used infrequently over the previous decade. Hunter Water's PFAS monitoring data can be found here and detections have been well under the Australian Guidelines, but in rare instances would be in breach of new US PFAS guidelines. Residents in the polluted zone were part of a 'successful' class action that was concluded in 2020.

Map of Katherine in the Northern Territory showing the highest levels of PFAS were recorded in Zone 1, which extends west of the Tindal RAAF base all the way into Katherine. Like Williamtown, people reliant on bore water have been the most impacted by PFAS. Some bores near Katherine recorded PFOS+PFHxS at 60 times the Australian guideline level.

According to the FoE data, 30% of PFAS drinking water detections, in ~17 localities supplying approximately 55,000 people were in breach of the PFOS+PFHxS drinking water guideline levels. However, if the new U.S. guidelines were implemented in Australia, where the guideline level of PFOS/PFHxS is dropped from 70ng/L to 4ng/L, the number would increase to almost 69% of detections in 37 localities (500,000 people) in breach of the guideline level. There were no detections of PFOA exceeding the Australian drinking water guideline.

Class actions implemented against the Federal Government and resolved in February 2020 (Williamtown, Katherine and Oakey) and May 2023 (Wagga Wagga, Richmond, Wodonga, Darwin, Townsville, Edinburgh and Bullsbrook saw tens of thousands of residents compensated for pollution and harm caused by the Defence Department. There has also been a $57 million redress scheme for fire fighters exposed to PFAS and other toxins at Fiskville in Victoria. So PFAS has already impacted tens of thousands of people in Australia.

Under the current Australian guidelines if PFOS+PFHxS is detected in raw water at levels <70ng/L and PFOA is detected at levels <560ng/L no further investigation is warranted by water authorities. However if the Australian guideline level is reduced to 4ng/L (the new U.S. Guideline) that would mean that a host of PFAS detections would warrant testing in the reticulated water systems.

Moorabool Water Treatment Plant which supplies ~90,000 people (35% of Geelongs's population) in the Geelong (Victoria) area with drinking water. PFOS detections in raw water have averaged 4.3ng/L over the past 6 years.  This equates to just over 6% of the Australian Guideline level, but is higher than the US Guideline. This would warrant further investigations into the source of the PFAS and reticulated tap sampling, however under Australian guideline levels, this is unnecessary. Where has the PFOS come from?

It should be stated that the amount of people exposed to PFAS chemicals above guideline levels would be far lower as most of the detections of PFAS would have been detected in raw water (pre-treatment) and not all people in those communities (particularly in larger towns) would be supplied drinking water from the water source where the PFAS was detected. However for some areas including residents relying on bore water and some communities where PFAS has been detected at unsafe levels, well after the PFAS has been used in the area, there is no denying that they would have been exposed at levels above guideline levels for long periods of time. What health impacts are now being revealed in people who have been drinking PFAS tainted water for years and potentially decades?

PFAS hotspots include Williamtown, Norfolk Island#, Oakey, Katherine, Jervis Bay/Wreck Bay, Ayr, Uralla and Macknade with a combined population of ~22,000 people. Although the highest levels were detected in Williamtown, the largest populations impacted would be Katherine and Ayr. (# Most (90%) of Norfolk Island's 2000 residents receive their drinking water from rainwater tanks).

Ayr Fire Station recorded PFAS levels at up to 9100 times higher than the ADWG's The station lies about 600m from the Nelsons Borefield, a source of Ayr's drinking water. Two bores from this borefield were shut down as early as 2018 due to PFAS contamination, with the highest PFOS+PFHxS levels of 680ng/L recorded in April 2023. Two bores 3 & 4 continue to operate as emergency supplies despite one of these bores having a PFOS+PFHxS detection of 54ng/L in 2023. Another bore (near local council offices had a PFOS+PFHxS detection of 55ng/L in 2023. Not all of Ayr's drinking water is supplied from the contaminated borefield with several others being used. Maximum levels in Ayr's reticulated drinking water in 2023 was 69ng/L with an average of 22.7ng/L (five times higher than the new US Guideline)  Is the Ayr scenario the most significant Australian PFAS issue in a domestic water supply? Use of 3M Lightwater at the Fire Station was apparently stopped in 2003, but use of fire fighting foam containing PFAS in Australia occurred since the 1960's. Sampling of tap water by the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services in 2016 revealed PFOS+PFHxS at 22ng/L.

As more information comes to light, more PFAS detections are being recorded. Glenmore Water Treatment Plant (marked with blue pin) at Rockhampton pumps water from the Fitzroy River. Pesticides have frequently been detected in the Fitzroy River. In 2022-23 Glenmore WTP recorded the PFAS chemical PFOA at 890ng/L in pre-treated water, which is the highest level of PFOA recorded in a domestic water supply in Australia. What was the source of the PFOA? It is unknown if PFOA was detected in tap water in Rockhampton. However, it does appear that a sum of PFOS+PFHxS of 25ng/L (max) and 20ng/L (av.) was recorded in treated water from the Glenmore Plant between 2018-2023 with PFOA recording 10ng/L (max) and 7ng/L (av.) during the same 5 year time frame.

The 2022/23 maximum PFOA raw water detection was 1.59 times higher than the current Australian guideline, but 222 times higher than the new US Guideline. It appears that PFOA was tested for twice during 2022/23 with the other reading coming in at 10ng/L. It also appears that this was the first time that PFAS chemicals had been detected in the Rockhampton drinking water supply. Testing in Rockhampton's water supply for PFAS chemicals appears to have begun as early as 2013/14. In 2013/14 Rockhampton Council wrote: The source water for the Glenmore Water Treatment Plant is taken from the Fitzroy Barrage Storage. A portion of this storage that is located approximately 5 km downstream of the  Glenmore Water Treatment Plant intake is adjacent to land that has a history of the usage of perfluorocarbon-containing chemicals for fire-fighting purposes...Perfluorcarbon testing has now been added in the water quality monitoring program with sampling scheduled annually or event related...." It should also be pointed out that the now de-commissioned West Rockhampton Sewage Treatment Plant was also located upstream of the Fitzroy Barrage. Is this also a source of PFAS?

Top 100 PFAS detections in Australian drinking water supplies sourced mainly from the Australian PFAS Map

Current Australian guideline for PFOS+PFHxS is 70ng/L. PFOA 560ng/L

New (April 2024) U.S. Guidelines PFOS 4ng/L, PFOA 4ng/L, PFHxS 10ng/L, PFNA 10ng/L and HFPO-DA (commonly known as GenX Chemicals) to 10ng/L

Best water filtration to remove PFAS

Probably the major reason why Australian Water Utilities have in general not upgraded their drinking water treatment plants to properly treat PFAS chemicals IS THE Prohibitive COST of providing these treatments. These treatments are mentioned in the article published by The Conversation on April 18 2024, that the three best ways to reduce your exposure to PFAS chemicals in drinking water are Activated Carbon, Ion Exchange Resin and Reverse Osmosis filters. Some water treatment plants (but definately not all) already implement these measures but many people relying on bore water for example do not have the capacity to install and maintain these options for home filtration systems.

Katherine had a new treatment plant constructed in April 2022, costing $24 million to deal with PFAS contamination there. A new $47 million dollar treatment plant was announced for Ayr in November 2023.

It could be argued that not all of these three treatment measures are necessary to properly treat all of the many PFAS found in drinking water. However in Australia both “conventional and advanced” Drinking Water Treatment Plants are presently not designed to adequately treat PFAS to anywhere near the new U.S. guidelines.

This blog was initiated by a recent surge in interest regarding a blog on PFAS detections in Victorian drinking water supplies published 2 years ago by FoE Melbourne.

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