PFAS in Well Water: The Public Parts-per-Trillion Lines

By SubcontractorHub Editorial Team·Published October 2026

PFAS in well water reaches a dealer as a certificate, not as a softener setting. The two public columns, a goal and a standard, are explained in MCL and MCLG. The unit move, when the lab prints nanograms or micrograms, is parts per trillion in drinking water. This page does not restate a removal percentage and does not name an installed price.

What the April 2024 Public Table Still Prints

EPA's PFAS page says that on April 10, 2024 the agency announced a final national primary drinking water regulation for six PFAS. The same page says the materials there are specific to that 2024 rulemaking and are provided for reference. The enforceable levels are maximum contaminant levels. The goals are maximum contaminant level goals, which the page calls health-based and non-enforceable.

Compliance with those MCLs, the page says, is determined by running annual averages at the sampling point. That sentence is about public water systems. It is not a private-well sampling plan.

The page says the PFOA MCL of 4.0 parts per trillion is also expressed as ng/L. The other individual MCLs on that table are printed as ppt. The mixture row is a unitless hazard index of 1, for mixtures containing at least two of PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA, and PFBS. This page does not calculate a hazard index.

What May 2026 Proposed, and What It Did Not Finish

The same EPA page, fetched October 15, 2026, says that on May 18, 2026 EPA announced two proposed rules for public comment. It says those actions deliver on a path forward announced on May 14, 2025. One proposed rule upholds the regulation for PFOA and PFOS and would give drinking water systems an option to request two additional years, to 2031, to comply with the enforceable limits. The other proposed rule would rescind the drinking water regulations for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA, and the hazard-index mixture of those three plus PFBS.

Read that as a proposal sitting on top of a 2024 table the site still prints. Do not tell a household that the four-chemical rows have already disappeared, and do not tell them the 2031 date is already the compliance date. The page describes proposals and public comment. A dealer's job ticket should name the date of the sheet and the date you read the EPA page.

What the 2024 Rule Asked Public Systems to Do

The fetched page says public water systems must monitor for these PFAS and have three years to complete initial monitoring, by 2027, followed by ongoing compliance monitoring. It says they must also provide the public with information on the levels beginning in 2027. It says public water systems have five years, by 2029, to implement solutions that reduce these PFAS if monitoring shows levels above the MCLs. Beginning in 2029, a system that violates an MCL must take action to reduce the levels and must notify the public.

Those years are the 2024 rule text on the page. The May 2026 proposal about an optional extension to 2031 is a different sentence, and it is aimed at PFOA and PFOS compliance for systems, not at a private well. Keep the two clocks apart on the quote.

Does a Private Well Have to Meet the Public Lines?

Virginia's private-well PFAS page says the MCLs do not apply to private wells, and that they are commonly used as a basis to understand private well water quality. It also says the quality of drinking water from private domestic wells is not regulated by the federal government under the Safe Drinking Water Act, nor by most state governments. Testing, the page says, is solely at the discretion of the well owner. Virginia says it does not sample private wells for PFAS and does not have authority to require others to do ongoing private-well sampling.

EPA's PFAS page says the agency announced $1 billion through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to help states and territories implement PFAS testing and treatment at public water systems and to help owners of private wells address PFAS contamination. That is a funding sentence. It is not a private-well MCL.

The broader split between public standards and a single-home well is private well water regulations. Primary versus secondary tables, which are a different pair of lists, are primary and secondary drinking water standards. PFAS on the 2024 table are primary-rule numbers, not secondary taste numbers.

What Virginia Says a Dealer Can Repeat

Virginia describes PFAS as human-made chemicals used in coatings, packaging, cookware, carpets, clothing, and firefighting foams, and it names PFOA, PFOS, GenX chemicals, and PFBS in that introduction. It says contamination of a private well is often localized, for example near an airfield where the foams were used or a facility where the chemicals were produced. It says it does not specify a distance that represents a threat, because geology, well depth, and the release vary.

On exposure, the page says only a small amount of PFAS can get into the body through skin, and that bathing or showering is not likely to be a primary route for PFOA, PFOS, GenX chemicals, or PFBS. It says the chemicals cannot be removed by heating or boiling. It recommends testing especially near a known source, and it names EPA methods 537, 537.1, or 533 as the drinking-water methods commercial labs use. It says the lab provides the bottle. It says not to fill a household jar.

The same page lists CDC minimal risk levels beside the EPA MCLs, including adult and child figures, and it says Virginia has no enforcement authority to require comparison to the MCLs. Those CDC figures are screening levels on that page. They are not a second MCL. This article does not copy them into a pass-fail box. If a customer asks, open the state page and show both columns with their names attached.

What This Page Will Not Add

EPA's PFAS page links fact sheets titled “Reducing PFAS in Your Drinking Water with a Home Filter” and “Treatment Options for Removing PFAS in Drinking Water.” Those files were not copied here, so this page does not state a removal percentage, a filter life, or a certified model. A listing, when you use one, is the model's own certificate.

A cation softener is not described on the fetched EPA table as the PFAS control. Do not move a hardness conversation onto this result. The visit still needs the raw number, the unit, the sample point, and whether treatment was already in the house. How to order a broader panel is the well water testing guide. The dealer record for that visit can sit with the rest of the job on water treatment contractor software.

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