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Fluorinated ski wax drop-off deadline approaching

Park City is asking folks to ski “fluor free.”
Park City is asking folks to ski “fluoro free.”

April 15 is the last day to drop off PFAS ski wax to Recycle Utah so it can be properly disposed of.

Sometimes the difference between winning and losing a race is a few milliseconds. That’s certainly true for alpine and nordic ski racers. For decades, athletes looking for a competitive edge would tune their skis with fluorinated wax.

“That’s how you achieve it is you throw $180 worth of wax on your skis for one run,” said Jace Peck, repair manager at Cole Sport.

Peck has been in the ski industry for over 30 years and is no stranger to fluorocarbon wax. He said until recent new technology, the fluorocarbon wax was a far superior product. By creating a moisture- and dirt-repelling barrier between skis and snow, the fluorocarbon wax helped to decrease friction and increase speed.

Its popularity was based on results, but putting that much of a chemical onto snow, that in Utah serves as our main water supply, proved to be problematic.

“If your kid is using it, historically maybe 10 years ago, and is a successful racer, you're probably doing it three times a day for three days in a row. And if there are 60 people in the field, that’s a lot of exposure,” said Peck.

A lot of exposure is right. Fluorocarbons and Polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, have been detected in Park City’s aquifer and groundwater wells.

Michelle De Haan, Park City’s water quality and treatment manager, said the city was able to tie the contamination back to the ski wax.

“There's over 12,000 of these PFAS compounds in a lot of different manmade materials. And, you know, we were able to create a fingerprint that has identified the fluoro ski wax as the contributing cause,” said De Haan.

It’s why on Feb. 16, the Park City Council passed the Drinking Water Source Protection Ordinance prohibiting the use and sale of all fluorinated ski wax in Park City.

The city was anticipating the move by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which on March 14 proposed the first-ever national drinking water standard to limit PFAS pollution. The proposal, which is expected to take effect at the end of the year, targets six of the roughly 12,000 known fluorinated compounds: perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA, commonly known as GenX Chemicals), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS).

De Haan said five of the six soon-to-be-banned chemicals showed up in Park City’s groundwater wells.

“The new limits for PFOS and PFOA are four parts per trillion and our highest level at PFOS is 7.2,” said De Haan.

De Haan said the contaminated well water currently supplies one-third of the area's drinking water, but the main drinking water source is the Weber River and the Rockport Reservoir. That source has been sampled multiple times and is PFAS-free.

Blending sources dilutes the well water; De Haan said the result, which is what comes out of people’s taps, doesn’t contain dangerous levels of PFAS.

She said the tunnel waters at the Three Kings treatment plant, which is expected to start up this summer, are also PFAS-free. Once Three Kings is up and running, it’s the city’s goal to remove well water from the city’s drinking supply.

While ski wax is a major contributor to water contamination, it’s just one of tens of thousands of products that contain what are called “forever chemicals.”

“Anything that has the ability to resist water, grease and stains. So fast food has a lot of culprits, wrappers from your hamburger, pizza boxes, popcorn bags that we might be using in our microwaves at home, toothpaste, dental floss, cosmetics, GoreTex, Teflon from pans, bike wax chain wax. So there's a lot of places we can look into our own households and say, ‘Hey, are there environmentally-friendly alternatives that are going to, you know, better protect the folks in my household as well?’”

So far, 100 pounds of fluorinated ski wax has been dropped off at Recycle Utah. Collection will continue until April 15. At that time, Recycle Utah will take all the wax to its hazardous waste provider that will incinerate it.

Local shops that still have unsold fluorinated ski wax can also take it to Recycle Utah, after which the city will reimburse them for their donated stock.