Ten years after Delaware started acting to curb so-called forever chemicals in the environment, three state agencies are stepping up their efforts to identify, monitor and reduce the human-made substances that are linked to many serious illnesses.
In late March, the agencies published an implementation plan for how they aim to cut the presence of PFAS chemicals in drinking water, soil and air. At the same time, they released a separate plan to investigate and reduce a broader class of “Chemicals of Emerging Concern” or CECs that include PFAS but also microplastics, pharmaceuticals and pesticides.
“These two documents establish a coordinated, science-based approach to identifying, assessing and reducing risks from a broad class of chemicals that threaten Delaware’s environment, drinking water, food supply and public health,” the state said, in a joint statement from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, the Division of Public Health, and the Department of Agriculture.
The framework on CECs will use proven technologies to find the chemicals in water, soil, air and wildlife, and will focus on reducing the pollution at its source and cleaning up chemicals that have already escaped into the environment. The PFAS plan builds on growing scientific knowledge of the problem since the chemicals were first found in Delaware’s groundwater in 2014.
Delaware regulators and lawmakers have sounded the alarm on PFAS over the last decade as gathering evidence linked the ubiquitous chemicals to illnesses including some cancers, elevated cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, and other health conditions such as a reduced response to vaccines.
In 2024, Delaware adopted long-awaited federal health limits on PFOA and PFOS, two of the most toxic and commonly found types of PFAS, while setting regulatory limits on four other kinds of the chemicals. Although federal implementation of those very strict limits, introduced by the Biden administration, have now been delayed by the Trump government until 2031, those “maximum contaminant limits” are now part of Delaware regulation.
The state’s efforts to curb the chemicals were broadly welcomed by environmentalists and water-quality experts as helping to protect the public from the chemicals that have been used in many consumer products such as nonstick cookware and flame-resistant fabrics since the 1940s.
“I think they’re doing what they can,” said Mark Nardone, Director of Advocacy at Delaware Nature Society. “It’s easy to say government should have or could have done more to control PFAS contamination, but the problem predates the establishment of regulatory agencies like the EPA and DNREC by three or four decades, and even then, we didn’t know about PFAS-associated health issues, so the best they can do now is to be stricter in permitting and clean up or contain existing areas of contamination to the extent that public funding will allow.”
Nardone said the chemicals have been controlled by the installation of filters on public water systems, and the high cost of doing so has been defrayed by the proceeds of legal settlements by Delaware and other states against some makers of the chemicals. In 2023, Delaware sued 14 chemical companies for contaminating the state with PFAS used in firefighting foam, including at Dover Air Force Base in Kent County and at New Castle Airport.
Consumers can also play a role in reducing the prevalence of PFAS and other emerging chemicals by avoiding the purchase of products containing the chemicals, Nardone said.
“Consumers need to learn more so they can make healthy decisions, whether they’re buying cookware, a new rain jacket, carpet, furniture with upholstery that’s been treated for stain resistance, or foods packed with certain foams,” he said.
Dr. Jerry Kauffman, director of the University of Delaware’s Water Resources Center, also welcomed the reports, which he said confirmed UD’s own research, and show the state is acting on a significant threat to public health.
“Delaware did a very good job in releasing this strategic plan and making it transparent,” Kauffman said. “Sampling done by the department in association with the water purveyors is very extensive.”
The plans include links to state or federal action to identify and curb PFAS at 15 sites in all three counties.On a unidentified property at Chestnut Grove Road and Fire School Road in Dover, for example, state officials testing a private well found both PFOA and PFOS at above the regulatory limit of 4 parts per trillion (ppt), officials said in a letter to the owner on Oct. 7, 2025. DNREC offered the owner a filter that would bring PFOA and PFOS into compliance.
In Sussex County, sampling of unfiltered water at another private well in February this year found PFOA at more than seven times the regulatory limit, and PFOS at about five times the limit, according to a redacted letter linked to the new plan. Still, that property was fitted with a PFAS filter, and officials found no PFAS in the filtered water, indicating that its filter was still protective. They said a DNREC contractor will return in February 2027 to determine if the filter is still removing the regulated PFAS from that supply.
In New Castle County, the agencies identified eight sites where DNREC is investigating PFAS in groundwater, surface water or drinking water.
The identification and control of PFAS in private wells should now be the focus of the state’s eradication efforts, said state Rep. Debra Heffernan (D-Brandywine Hundred), who chairs the House’s Natural Resources and Energy Committee, and cosponsored SB72, a 2025 bill that requires water purveyors to start testing for PFAS this year, and cut them to almost zero by 2029.
“Delaware is ahead of other states in the identification and mapping of the PFAS contamination but the remediation is now our next step. They’ve started it but that hasn’t been the focus,” Heffernan said.
While customers of large water systems like that in Wilmington are typically protected from PFAS by filters, users of smaller local water systems and private wells, often in rural areas, are less likely to be, so that should now be prioritized by officials, said Heffernan, an environmental toxicologist.
“When people have City of Wilmington water or a private company, they are doing the filtration needed to clean up the water systems but it is a lot of the smaller towns that need the most help,” she said.
Although Heffernan has been a leader in pushing for PFAS regulation, she said the chemicals should not be banned in every case because they have critical uses such as feeding tubes for premature babies for which substitutes cannot easily be found.
“The chemicals are used in a lot of products that are pretty important so we have to make sure that we don’t do anything to hinder what is medically necessary,” she said.
Other than filtration, consumers may be able to find alternative water sources that don’t contain PFAS, said UD’s Kauffman.
“If anyone asks me what the long-term solution is to PFAS, it’s to search for other water supplies, perhaps drilling the wells deeper or drawing from a different stream,” he said.
