After the suspected carcinogenic perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) and the district office in Altötting found another toxin from the same group of substances at several drinking water suppliers in the Upper Bavarian district. According to a statement by the two authorities on Monday, traces of the substance HFPO-DA, also known as “GenX”, were detected in the drinking water of four suppliers.
In all samples examined, the value was therefore below the “guide value” specified by the LGL, up to which lifelong intake of the substance is considered harmless to health. In some cases, however, samples only just missed this guide value. According to the LGL, “measures are being taken on site for reasons of preventive consumer health protection”.
GenX, which has been produced on a larger scale since 2009, was intended to replace PFOA in industry, which was produced and processed in the Gendorf Chemical Park for decades as a raw material for impregnations and coatings and has been banned throughout the EU since 2020. Both belong to the thousands of substances in the group of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). The European Chemicals Agency classifies HFPO-DA as a “substance of very high concern” but considers it to be slightly less harmful overall than PFOA. The Gendorf Chemical Park, where the substance is produced as a by-product in the manufacture of other substances according to the LGL, is also considered a possible source of pollution in the district of Altötting. The area contaminated with HFPO-DA largely coincides with that in the case of PFOA and covers about one third of the county.
The PFOA is now filtered very effectively from the groundwater by the drinking water suppliers. According to the LGL, the filters are less effective against GenX. The authority announces further investigations, also on the dangerousness of the substances. Until then, be a large-scale Blood test as for PFOA not useful. In this case, many people were only alarmed by the detection of higher concentrations in donor blood from the region.