THE ITALIAN THRESHOLD VALUES FOR PERFLUOROOCTANOIC ACID (PFOA) AND RELATED SHORT CHAIN PERFLUORINATED ALKYL ACIDS IN GROUNDWATER

A Working Group on Environmental Quality Standard (EQS) for perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAA) was formally established by the Italian government in response to the evidence of significant sources of PFAA in Northern Italy. The main scope was to include some of them in the list of national specific pollutants for surface (Ministerial Decree 260/2010) and ground waters (Legislative Decree 30/2009) monitoring and classification in the context of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC). The European Directive 2006/118/EC on groundwater protection, transposed into the national legislation through Legislative Decree no. 30/2009, requires to set threshold values for pollutants, pollutant groups and pollution indicators, which have been identified as factors contributing to placing groundwater bodies at risk of not reaching the "healthy state" level. The Directive indicates a minimum list of 10 parameters and requires that the member States, on the basis of existing monitoring data, set further limits for pollutants present in the country. The organic pollutants have been chosen by considering the statistical distribution of concentrations and frequency of detection in the Italian surface and ground waters. The chemical compounds in the list included perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and related short chain (number of carbon <7) perfluorocarboxylic acids such as perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA), perfluoropentanoic acid (PFPeA) and perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA). Perfluorobutanesulphonic acid (PFBS), which is a common substitute of perfluorooctanesulphonic acid (PFOS), has been included too. A dossier for each of these substances collecting available data on regulation, physico-chemical properties, emission and sources, occurrence, acute and chronic toxicity on aquatic species and mammals, including humans has been prepared. According to the protocol recommended by the Technical Guidance Document on deriving EQS (CIS-WFD Guidance n. 27), Quality Standards (QS) have been derived for the different protection objectives (pelagic and benthic communities, predators by secondary poisoning, human health via consumption of fishery products and water). The most protective QS have been set as the national EQS. In Italy, the limits suggested as threshold values in groundwater to be applied in the relevant regulation (National Decree 30/2009) correspond to the ones established for the protection of human health by drinking water consumption (PFPeA 3 ?g L-1, PFHxA 1 ?g L-1, PFBS 3 ?g L-1 and PFOA 0.5 ?g L-1).