Anchorage utility's budget says it pulled a well with PFAS above a proposed standard

The Anchorage Water & Wastewater Utility's 2026 budget says testing found PFAS, or forever chemicals, above what it calls a proposed drinking-water standard in one Anchorage Bowl groundwater well, which AWWU removed from service. The budget does not date the tests or the removal. Alaska News first reported the finding Aug. 28, alongside AWWU's request for $4 million in emergency water-system contracts.

Three of AWWU's highest-producing Anchorage Bowl wells showed measurable PFAS. Two stayed below the proposed standard. AWWU applied management controls to all three wells and is investigating treatment to remove PFAS, according to the 2026 utility budget. The budget says tests of the utility's surface-water treatment facilities do not detect PFAS.

AWWU, the largest water and wastewater utility in Alaska, serves about 225,000 people through nearly 57,000 accounts. The Eklutna Water Treatment Facility supplies about 92 percent of the water used in the Anchorage Bowl and Eagle River.

Alaska follows federal limits the Environmental Protection Agency adopted April 10, 2024. The state Department of Environmental Conservation lists those limits as 4.0 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, 10 parts per trillion for PFHxS, PFNA and GenX chemicals, and a hazard index of 1 for specified mixtures. One part per trillion is roughly one drop in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, DEC says.

Water systems must finish initial monitoring by 2027, with larger systems collecting four quarterly samples, and must cut levels that exceed a limit by 2029. The EPA proposed May 20 to move the PFOA and PFOS deadline from April 26, 2029, to April 26, 2031, for systems that request more time. Public comment on that proposal closed July 20.