Notre Dame Study Maps PFAS Path Through Great Lakes Food Chain
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- University of Notre Dame researchers published a peer-reviewed meta-analysis in the Journal of Environmental Quality this spring, combining 42 years of studies and nearly 2,500 samples of algae, fish, birds, and other Great Lakes organisms to map PFAS distribution.
- PFAS concentrations rise as they move up the food chain — lowest in fast-growing algae and plants, highest in predators like salmon and eagles that consume prey carrying accumulated chemicals, according to co-author Gary Lamberti.
- PFOS, one specific PFAS chemical, dropped dramatically over the last two decades in the lower Great Lakes (Ontario and Erie) following a voluntary industry phaseout in the early 2000s, Lamberti's study found.
- The upper lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron) showed little to no PFOS decline, likely because their water takes 60 to 170 years to flush compared with 2 to 7 years for the shallower lower lakes.
- The study focused on six commonly tested PFAS compounds, though the National Institutes of Health counts more than 15,000 distinct PFAS types in commerce.
- States including Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Montana, and Pennsylvania have issued fish-consumption advisories over potentially dangerous PFAS levels; Michigan has tested fish for PFAS annually since 2012.
- Lamberti called the decline in lower-lake PFOS 'good news for how we can manage these chemicals,' arguing that phasing out production lets food webs eventually cycle the compounds out — though no national PFAS ban exists, only a patchwork of federal restrictions.
Why it matters: The study delivers the clearest evidence yet that voluntary industry phaseouts actually work: PFOS levels fell sharply in the lower Great Lakes within roughly two decades of companies stopping use. But the upper lakes' 60-to-170-year water residence time means fish-eaters there — including Michigan's commercial and subsistence anglers — face a multi-generational exposure window, making the absence of a national PFAS ban a concrete public-health gap rather than an abstract one.
