An Okayama town kept supplying PFAS-contaminated tap water for years while its own test results exceeded the national target, and the mayor admits it should have stopped sooner
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What happened
Kibichuo town's own root-cause committee report (5 September 2024) records that on 13 October 2023 Okayama Prefecture told the town its fiscal 2022 test results for the Enjo water purification plant were far above the national provisional target of 50 ng/L for PFOS plus PFOA, and that the target had also been exceeded in fiscal 2020 and 2021; the town then measured 1,200 ng/L at the plant's intake, and the likely source was spent activated carbon stored upstream of the reservoir. Mayor Masanori Yamamoto said in April 2024 that the supply could have been stopped earlier in those three years and that the response of staff and himself was not appropriate. In blood tests the town released on 28 January 2025, more than 80% of 709 residents tested were above the US guideline of 20 ng/mL; the town has since switched water sources.
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