Rural Schools With Independent Wells Found to Have Unmonitored PFAS Contamination

Recent tests of water show that some rural schools that use private wells are getting PFAS without having to report or monitor it

Wednesday, August 20, 2025 - PFAS contamination is an unexpected and scary health problem for small rural schools all throughout the country that get their drinking water from their own private wells. Schools that don't use regulated municipal systems have found forever chemicals in their drinking water. They are used in everything from firefighting foam to materials that don't stain. The presence of PFAS has gone undiscovered until now because these schools don't have to follow federal and state water testing rules. For years, teachers, kids, and staff have inadvertently drunk water that may have hazardous quantities of these manmade substances. Long-term exposure has caused public health advocates to worry and raised issues about who is responsible. Legal experts suggest that parents and personnel at schools who have been harmed may want to hire a PFAS cancer lawyer, especially if they start to get sick or have strange health problems. Many health concerns have been connected to PFAS chemicals, such as difficulties with the thyroid, the immune system, and different types of cancer. Some areas are even talking about a PFAS drinking water lawsuit because rural schools were never told about or safeguarded from the chemicals. Many small schools in farming towns and isolated areas depend on private wells, and they usually have to pay for the testing and upkeep of those wells themselves. Even though they serve some of the most vulnerable people in society these schools typically don't have the money or know-how to do routine PFAS testing. More parents and school authorities are starting to wonder how long this contamination has been going on and why there weren't any safety measures in place as more people learn about it.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that PFAS has been identified in about 45% of the country's tap water, including in samples from rural and uncontrolled sources. But since most private wells aren't covered by the Safe Drinking Water Act, schools that have their own wells don't have to test for these pollutants all the time. That means that PFAS contamination could have been around for years without anyone noticing. Environmental scientists say that a many rural regions are close to old airfields, factories, or landfills, which are places where PFAS have been used or thrown away in the past. These chemicals can readily get into the ground and move a long way, especially when it rains or floods. They are quite hard to get rid of once they get into the groundwater. Some state authorities have started voluntary testing programs for schools, but not all schools are taking part, and the findings typically take a long time to come in. A lot of the time, schools only discover they have a problem when a student group, watchdog group, or member of the community asks for independent testing. For now, kids keep drinking the water every day, and the school staff is left to worry about what kind of long-term harm has already been done.

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• Private Homeowners and Renters Are Largely Unaware Of the Toxic Chemical That Contaminate Their Everyday Drinking Wellwater | 3/1/2022
• Individuals and Families Should Test The Drinking Water For Carcinogenic Chemical Contamination | 2/28/2022

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