Delaware: a small state with documented PFAS problems

Delaware may be compact, but it carries some of the more clearly documented PFAS contamination on the East Coast. In the Sussex County town of Blades, all three municipal wells tested above 70 ppt in 2018, prompting officials to truck in portable water tanks and install carbon filtration while a permanent fix was engineered; the Blades groundwater site was later added to the federal Superfund National Priorities List. Contamination has also been studied in New Castle County to the north, where the federal ATSDR carried out an exposure assessment around the industrialized Wilmington corridor.

The scope reaches well beyond one town. An Environmental Working Group survey found PFAS in more than half of the Delaware wells it sampled, according to DNREC, EWG and Delaware Public Media reporting. That breadth is precisely why testing matters across the whole state - from the industrial north down to the agricultural south, where small utilities and private wells sit close together and results can shift from one block to the next. The Blades response is also a useful proof of concept: when the numbers spiked, carbon filtration served as the immediate remedy, and that same technology is available to any homeowner today. Delaware's environmental agency, DNREC, has continued sampling public systems and coordinating with federal partners on the New Castle County exposure work, so the state's picture keeps sharpening rather than sitting frozen at the 2018 headlines. For a resident, the practical lesson is that a documented regional problem still comes down to your individual connection - the well or municipal tap serving your address - and only a test answers that question.

Delaware's own limits alongside the federal rule

Delaware has not left its residents relying on Washington alone. The state has moved to adopt its own PFAS MCLs that mirror the federal thresholds - PFOS and PFOA at 4 ppt, and PFHxS, PFNA and GenX at 10 ppt, per BCLP - so households here are covered by state and federal standards at once. Those state figures line up with the 2024 EPA rule, giving Delaware a double layer of enforceability that many states still lack.

Turning contaminated water back into safe water

Whichever county you live in, three removal methods carry real-world performance behind them. A granular activated carbon (GAC) bed is the whole-house workhorse, holding PFAS on its vast carbon surface as water passes through - the very approach Blades leaned on in its emergency response. An anion-exchange resin unit swaps PFAS ions off the water in a notably smaller footprint, a plus for tight utility rooms in older Delaware homes. And reverse osmosis (RO) drives water through a fine membrane that rejects PFAS alongside many other impurities, which is why it earns its place at the drinking tap rather than the whole house.

On a Blades-area or private-well supply with known PFAS, a whole-house point-of-entry system treats every faucet, and many families add an under-sink RO for a dedicated drinking-water barrier.

Check your own water first

Near a documented site or not, the responsible first move is data. Pull your public utility's annual water-quality report, or, if you rely on a private well that no public program covers, order a certified PFAS lab test. Our PFAS removal guide explains how to interpret what comes back.

Once you know what you are dealing with, choosing equipment is simple. Every order ships free in the US, and you are welcome to send us your lab numbers for a no-pressure recommendation.

Systems that fit Delaware homes