Water Resources & Quality Division

The health and safety of our community is the City’s top priority. We believe routine water testing is an important and necessary action to ensure the safety of our drinking water. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a group of manufactured chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer products since the 1940s because of their useful properties. One common characteristic of concern of PFAS compounds is that many break down very slowly and can build up in people, animals, and the environment over time. PFAS can be found in a wide variety of products, such as carpeting, cookware, food packaging, and clothing because they are resistant to heat, water and oil. They are also found in foams used to fight certain kinds of fires.

In June 2022, the EPA released new interim health advisory levels for some PFAS compounds including PFOA and PFOS. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) is supportive of these new health advisory levels. According to the EPA, “The updated advisory levels, which are based on new science and consider lifetime exposure, indicate that some negative health effects may occur with concentrations of PFOA or PFOS in water that are near zero and below EPA’s ability to detect at this time.”

The City initially tested for PFAS compounds in 2013 and again in 2020 with results indicating PFOS and PFOA were not present in the drinking water below the laboratory’s minimum reporting limit.  This means the results are below the level at which current testing technology is able to reliably verify results —not that it isn’t present in the water. Both of these rounds of testing were completed before EPA’s lower health advisory levels were developed. We are engaging our partners at CDPHE for guidance on further testing of Westminster’s drinking water. The City is committed to following the latest science and guidance from the state and federal government, and we will provide additional updates to the community as more information is available.

In July 2022, the City was made aware that Thornton had PFAS results above the new EPA health advisory levels and was required by CDPHE to notify consumers about the situation. It is worth noting that Thornton draws water from other sources in addition to Standley Lake, while Westminster’s only water source is Standley Lake.  

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances- or PFAS- are human-made chemicals that are used for both consumer and industrial products. PFOA and PFOS, which are classified as PFAS, have been the most extensively produced and studied of these chemicals. They have been used to make carpets, clothing, fabrics for furniture, paper packaging for food, and other materials (e.g., cookware) that are resistant to water, grease, or stains. They are also used for firefighting at airfields and in a number of industrial processes. Because these chemicals have been used in an array of consumer products, most people have been exposed to them.

Between 2000 and 2002, PFOS was voluntarily phased out of production in the U.S. by its primary manufacturer. In 2006, eight major companies voluntarily agreed to phase out their global production of PFOA and PFOA-related chemicals, although there are a limited number of ongoing uses. Scientists have found PFOA and PFOS in the blood of nearly all the people they tested, but these studies show that the levels of PFOA and PFOS in blood have been decreasing. While consumer products and food are a large source of exposure to these chemicals for most people, drinking water can be an additional source in the small percentage of communities where these chemicals have contaminated water supplies. Such contamination is typically localized and associated with a specific facility, for example, an industrial facility where these chemicals were produced or used to manufacture other products or an airfield at which they were used for firefighting

To learn more about PFAS, please visit CDPHE’s PFAS page and the Environmental Protection Agency’s PFAS page.