What Are PFAS — and Are They in Your Water?

What are PFAS, anyway?

PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a family of thousands of man-made chemicals used since the 1940s to make things resist water, grease, and heat — nonstick pans, waterproof jackets, food wrappers, stain-resistant carpet, firefighting foam. They're very good at that job. The problem is they're too good at it: the chemical bond that makes them useful also makes them extremely slow to break down. That's why you'll hear them called "forever chemicals." They build up — in soil, in water, and over time, in people.

Two of the oldest and most-studied PFAS are PFOA and PFOS. U.S. manufacturers phased them out years ago, but because they don't break down, they're still showing up in water supplies across the country — including the Midwest.

Should I be worried?

Honest answer: the science is still maturing, and we're not going to scare you with worst-case headlines. What's known is that the EPA considers PFOA and PFOS contaminants of concern, and research has linked long-term exposure to potential effects on growth and development, reproduction, and the liver. Concerning enough that in 2024 the EPA set the first-ever enforceable federal limits for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water — at 4 parts per trillion. To picture a part per trillion: about one drop of water in twenty Olympic-size swimming pools.

So my water utility is handling it, right?

Eventually — but here's the part most articles skip. Utilities are working through the new federal PFAS requirements on a multi-year timeline: in 2026 the EPA proposed keeping the strict limits for PFOA and PFOS while extending the compliance deadline for water utilities, from 2029 to as late as 2031 for systems that request it. Upgrading a municipal treatment plant is genuinely slow, expensive work, so the extension isn't a scandal — but it does mean that even under the strictest water standards in history, the water arriving at some homes may not be treated for PFAS for several more years.

A good habit either way: every summer, your water utility publishes a Consumer Confidence Report — a public, free water quality report that tells you what's been detected in your area's water. If you'd like help making sense of yours, that's a conversation we're happy to have.

What actually works at home?

This is where the research gets encouraging. The Water Quality Research Foundation (WQRF) — the research arm of the Water Quality Association — funded a Purdue University study on how home water treatment media handle PFAS. The finding: activated carbon, ion exchange, and reverse osmosis membranes all retained PFAS at rates from roughly 99.83% to better than 99.99% — and held onto them even under simulated disposal conditions. In plain English: proven home treatment doesn't just move PFAS around — it captures them and keeps them.

For drinking and cooking water, reverse osmosis (RO) at the kitchen tap is the approach we recommend most often: it forces water through a membrane with pores so small that PFAS molecules — along with lead and a long list of other things you'd rather not drink — largely can't pass.

Why "certified" is the word that matters

Any filter can claim it reduces PFAS. The claim that counts is third-party certification: an independent lab verifying, against NSF/ANSI standards, that a specific system actually reduces specific contaminants the way the box says. The Water Quality Association's Gold Seal program is one of the most respected certifiers in the industry.

That's why the drinking water system we install and service — the Kinetico K5 Drinking Water Station — matters here. In Kinetico's own words:

Certification first, marketing second. As the KC area's only authorized Kinetico dealer, we've installed a lot of K5s over the years — there's a good chance one is under your kitchen sink right now.

What about the AquaKinetic A200?

Plenty of our customers drink great water from Kinetico's AquaKinetic A200 every day — it's the K5's streamlined sibling, and it's a genuinely good system: tested and certified by WQA against NSF/ANSI Standards 42 and 58 for a long list of contaminants, including lead, arsenic, fluoride, and total dissolved solids.

Here's the straight answer on PFAS, because you deserve one: the A200 has not been put through the specific PFOA/PFOS certification test — that certification currently belongs to the K5. That doesn't mean the A200 is doing nothing here. It uses the same class of reverse osmosis membrane and carbon filtration that the WQRF research above measured retaining PFAS at very high rates. What it means is that nobody — not Kinetico, not us — has the independent lab result in hand to promise it for the A200. And we'd rather tell you that plainly than stretch a claim.

So if certified PFAS reduction is a priority for your household, the honest recommendation is the K5. If you're an A200 owner wondering whether an upgrade is worth it for your water, ask us — you'll get a straight answer either way.