By the Numbers: Michigan PFAS Action Response Team continues to be a national leader in addressing PFAS

In fiscal year (FY) 2025, the Michigan Legislature continued to support the state’s response to PFAS by appropriating funding across the seven state agencies that make up the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team (MPART). This funding, from many sources, allowed MPART to continue to be a national leader in addressing PFAS.

MPART was established in 2017 to address the threat of PFAS contamination in Michigan, protect public health, and ensure the safety of Michigan’s land, air, and water, while facilitating inter-agency coordination, increasing transparency, and requiring clear standards to ensure accountability. MPART is charged with providing recommendations to the department directors and coordinates efforts between them.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – also known as “forever chemicals” – continue to present some of the biggest challenges in chemical contamination across the world. States throughout the nation, including the Great Lakes region, are finding PFAS contamination in a growing number of locations where these persistent chemicals pose a threat to human health and the environment.

New Sites and Areas of Interest

As of the end of FY2025, MPART had identified 328 MPART PFAS Sites. A PFAS site is an area where PFAS contamination has been found in groundwater above Michigan’s criteria, and the source of the contamination has been identified (see map). As of the end of FY2025, MPART had also added eight Areas of Interest (AOI) for a total of 38, which are locations where groundwater is over criteria, the source is unknown, and MPART is conducting drinking water sampling. MPART continues to actively conduct investigations at dozens of other areas around the state near known or likely sources and in areas where the sources of the contamination are still unknown.

Monitoring and Addressing Sources of PFAS Around Michigan

• In FY2025, coordinated the administration of 18 grants that supported PFAS testing and monitoring at airports across the state. At the end of the fiscal year, 16 out of 18 of these grants were closed out
• Reviewed and responded to 77 foam sightings on many different Michigan lakes and streams. Reports are used to help guide future lake and stream sampling efforts.
• Collected 1,860 fish samples from 64 different water bodies to determine the need for fish consumption advisories
• Collected 702 water samples from lakes and streams from eight different watersheds.
• Used a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) grant to conduct fish contaminant monitoring in 10 water bodies with youth fishing events in FY25.
• Collected over 90 storm sewer and surface water samples as part of six investigations to identify sources of elevated PFAS concentrations throughout the state.
• In FY2025, 20 Administrative Consent Orders or General Administrative Consent Orders were entered into with parties associated with industrial sites to address PFAS in their stormwater discharges to surface waters.
• Seventeen active industrial wastewater facilities with direct discharges to surface waters currently have National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits, certificates of coverage, or substantive requirements documents containing PFAS discharge limits.
• A total of 176 municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have monitoring requirements for PFAS.
• The efforts taken under the Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP) Initiative has resulted in a 59% reduction of PFOS in the discharge to surface waters from municipal WWTPs with an IPP. Some IPP WWTPs with significant industrial sources of PFAS have achieved up to a 99% reduction in PFOS being discharged to surface waters. Some of these reductions can be attributed to the efforts by 20 IPP WWTPs in setting local discharge limits on their industrial sources of PFAS in order to reduce the amount of PFOS discharged.
• As of October 2025, 86 industries that discharge to municipal WWTPs have installed pretreatment and/or have achieved significant reductions through cleaning, equipment replacement, eliminating PFOS-contaminated processes or materials, limiting discharge to specific WWTPs, or isolating contamination. These actions are significant because WWTPs are not designed to treat PFAS.

Filters and Residential Well Sampling

• Sampled more than 690 drinking water wells that had not been previously sampled
• Re-sampled more than 1,870 drinking water wells that had been sampled in previous years.
• Provided more than 270 PFAS-reducing filters to impacted residents.
• Provided more than 1,250 replacement cartridges for PFAS-reducing filters

For more information on MPART’s work, check out the Fast Facts report.