[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: GAO on Department of Energy PFAS Use

[Lenny Siegel <Lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Persistent Chemicals: DOE Should Complete Efforts to Review PFAS Use

Government Accountability Office
GAO-25-107809
Published: September 10, 2025. 
Publicly Released: Sep 24, 2025.

Highlights

What GAO Found

Department of Energy (DOE) sites have long used per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) for purposes such as firefighting and uranium enrichment. These chemicals can harm human health and the environment, and are highly mobile, persistent, and resistant to degradation.

To understand the status of PFAS efforts throughout the department, DOE surveyed 57 of its sites, focusing on Manhattan Project and Cold War-era sites. As of 2024, 20 of 57 surveyed sites had completed their initial reviews of historical and current use, 21 are in progress, and 16 have not started. Additionally, there are over 100 DOE sites that were not surveyed—such as electrical substations and transformers managed by the Power Marketing Administrations, and their actions to review historical PFAS use are unknown. A 2021 policy memo from the Deputy Secretary of Energy directed all DOE program offices to characterize PFAS use at DOE sites, but the memo did not have a deadline for completing such work. If sites do not review their historical and current use of PFAS, DOE will not know the extent of where PFAS contamination poses a risk to human health and the environment or be able to effectively prioritize cleanup actions and estimate cleanup costs.

Seventeen of the 57 surveyed DOE sites have on-site drinking water systems, and they have all tested for PFAS. Three of these sites reported contamination levels exceeding the federal maximum contaminant levels of 4.0 parts per trillion for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) or perfluorooctane sulfonate—also known as perfluorooctanesulfonic acid—(PFOS) in drinking water, though these levels do not go into effect until 2029. These three sites treat or provide bottled water to workers.

Regarding groundwater, 17 of the 57 surveyed sites tested for PFAS in groundwater. Ten of these sites reported levels in their groundwater that were higher than the federal maximum contaminant level for drinking water. While this standard is not directly applicable to groundwater, DOE has used drinking water standards as groundwater cleanup targets for other environmental cleanup efforts.

DOE is early in the process of investigating and cleaning up PFAS contamination. GAO selected nine sites with known PFAS contamination for additional analysis. Two of the nine selected sites have started PFAS groundwater cleanup efforts. For example, since October 2022, Brookhaven National Laboratory has treated over 700 million gallons of water for PFAS through groundwater treatment systems. For the nine selected sites, DOE reported spending a total of about $20 million through 2024 on PFAS efforts. Most of these costs were related to active treatment efforts at Brookhaven National Laboratory. DOE has not generally included estimated PFAS investigation and cleanup costs in its environmental liabilities, which means that future cleanup costs will be higher than the currently reported liabilities.

…

For the entire report, see
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107809


—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)




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