High levels of ‘forever chemicals’ found in Smitty’s Supply stormwater discharges

By Wesley Muller

Contributing Writer

(lailluminator.com)  — Sampling of stormwater discharges from a destroyed petrochemical facility in Tangipahoa Parish detected high levels of cancer-linked compounds known as “forever chemicals,” according to months-old lab reports that state environmental officials released this month.

The lab results show extensive contamination at the Smitty’s Supply Inc. site in Roseland, documenting at least 24 different per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. They are called “forever chemicals” because of their ability to persist in the environment for decades without degrading.

PFAS compounds have been used in a wide variety of consumer and industrial products such as clothing, cookware, lubricants and food packaging. A large body of scientific research has linked PFAS exposure to cancer, liver damage, hormone disruptions and other illnesses.

The Smitty’s Supply facility caught fire and exploded in August, spewing a variety of chemicals into the environment. Crews have so far recovered over 13 million gallons of oily liquids from the Smitty’s spill,  according to state records.

On March 2, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality released four sets of lab reports on the chemical analysis of “controlled discharge” incidents that took place at the site during cleanup efforts, which remain ongoing. All four reveal the presence of PFAS chemicals at levels far beyond the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.

LDEQ spokeswoman Meagan Molter said the reports were under investigative review. The Smitty’s Supply disaster is under investigation by LDEQ, the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI, among other state and federal agencies.

One report is from Oct. 26, another from Dec. 5, and the most recent two are from Jan. 9 and Jan. 24, though none were available on LDEQ’s public online database until earlier this month. The Illuminator initially obtained one of the reports from Scott Smith, a scientist who conducts environmental testing services for chemically-impacted communities. Smith is working with the Keenan Law Firm, which is representing neighbors in litigation against Smitty’s Supply.

Smith said he obtained the December lab report on Jan. 13 from the Tangipahoa Parish government through a public records request. The Department of Environmental Quality posted all four reports on its website on March 2, hours after the Illuminator inquired about the report Smith had obtained.

Collectively, the four reports contained analysis of 34 stormwater discharge samples. All the samples contained perfluorooctane sulfonic acid at levels far above the EPA’s drinking water standards, including one that measured 13,000 parts per trillion – which is 3,250 times higher than the level deemed safe by EPA drinking water standards. It was also 52 times higher than the level considered safe for aquatic freshwater animals.

Additionally, the samples contained perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid at levels 67 times and 308 times higher than EPA drinking water recommendations, respectively.

Stormwater from the Smitty’s Supply site drains into the Tangipahoa River, which eventually flows into Lake Pontchartrain. Although neither serve as public drinking water sources, LDEQ generally uses drinking water standards when sampling for environmental pollution events per state regulations.

Jennifer Brandon, an environmental scientist and consultant who studies water pollution and reviewed the LDEQ reports, said contaminants such as PFAS often begin in stormwater or surface water and their high mobility means they can easily seep into aquifers and wells.

“It goes back into your drinking water supplies and your groundwater,” Brandon said.

The LDEQ lab reports show all the samples had multiple PFAS contaminants with as many as 24 present in some samples. Mixtures of different PFAS chemicals carry significantly higher health risks, according to the EPA, so the safety thresholds for individual contaminants are no longer considered safe if two or more PFAS are present.

Although President Donald Trump started efforts to crack down on PFAS contamination in 2019, his administration has since rescinded some of those regulations and delayed enforcement of others. Drinking water systems no longer have to treat and remove certain PFAS contaminants until 2031, ProPublica reported.

First created in the 1940s, PFAS gained prominence through the invention of Teflon cookware and are proven to be one of the strongest chemical bonds known to science, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. They are highly effective at resisting heat, friction and light and have the rare dual ability to repel water and oil. 

But these properties make them incredibly difficult to remove from the environment. The synthetic compounds don’t degrade naturally and are highly mobile, meaning they’re very easily spread. PFAS are so ubiquitous, researchers have found them in the blood of every American tested for the chemicals, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“There’s a reason why we call these forever chemicals,” Brandon said. “The carbon-fluorine bond is one of the hardest chemical bonds to break.”

Brandon admitted it’s difficult to say definitively where the PFAS in the Smitty’s Supply discharge originated, but she said the most likely sources are the firefighting foam used at the site and possibly some of the chemicals the company had in its inventory. Its facility manufactured and distributed a wide range of products for the automotive and industrial sectors, including oils, grease, lubricants and other fluids.

In an emailed statement, a spokeswoman for Smitty’s Supply said the PFAS are from firefighting foam not from Smitty’s operations or products. However, PFAS are common in motor oils, hydraulic fluids and lubricants, according to a recent Texas A&M study.

Christopher Higgins, a Colorado School of Mines chemistry professor who specializes in PFAS research, said the LDEQ lab reports he reviewed for the Illuminator indicate at least two different types of foams were likely used on the fire.

Higgins and Brandon pointed out that perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, which all the lab reports confirmed were present in high levels in the stormwater discharges, was phased out many years ago. Its most common uses were in firefighting foam and stain repellants. Chemical manufacturers stopped selling it in the United States about 25 years ago after researchers linked it to kidney, testicular and colorectal cancers, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The PFOS acid from the Smitty’s Supply discharge could have come from another contaminated source, such as a fire truck that once used an older foam many years ago, Higgins said. It’s extremely difficult to decontaminate fire trucks and tanks that once held the old foam, he said.

LDEQ records show first responders battled the Smitty’s fire using a firefighting foam known to be a major source of PFAS contamination worldwide, though it might not account for all the chemicals that appeared in the lab results.

The lab results also found several other chemicals consistent with petrochemical spills and fires. The results included chemicals found in diesel fuels, semi-volatile organic compounds and over a dozen different heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, chromium, cadmium and barium.

The Smitty’s Supply fire began Aug. 22 and burned for two weeks, causing several large petroleum storage tanks to explode and spill their contents into neighboring areas, including the Tangipahoa River. The tanks had a capacity of over 8 million gallons, and the company had other chemicals stored in hundreds of barrels and totes strewn across the property, according to inspection records.

The initial EPA-led cleanup crews recovered more than 11.2 million gallons of oily liquids as of Oct. 15, and Smitty’s crews recovered an additional 2.2 million gallons, placing the total recovered at 13.4 million gallons, according to state records.

Crews also recovered an estimated 940 tons of oily solids and 3,900 tons of contaminated soil for disposal at landfills, as well as 4,500 tons of metal for recycling.

It’s unclear how much of the contaminated water from Smitty’s was discharged and where it went. Greg Langley, LDEQ’s lead spokesman, said the agency can’t discuss the specifics because those specific discharge incidents are part of an active investigation.

Last month, Smitty’s obtained a permit to pump millions of gallons of treated stormwater into a highway ditch that flows to the Tangipahoa River. The company hired a wastewater treatment contractor to establish an onsite treatment system to handle stormwater contaminated with runoff chemicals from the spill.

“Smitty’s has maintained a comprehensive stormwater management and sampling program pursuant to a Voluntary Consent Order overseen by EPA and LDEQ, with all sampling results submitted to both agencies and publicly available,” the company said in a statement from its public relations firm. “The only stormwater discharge events occur under upset rain events when it is physically impossible to capture all of the stormwater. Regulatory agencies are notified of each stormwater discharge event in accordance with the applicable order.”

The company’s stormwater treatment system, which is a dissolved air filtration system, does not remove PFAS, Higgins said. Only a handful of technologies are effective at removing PFAS from water, and removing them isn’t the same as destroying or breaking them down, he said.

The most common methods of human exposure to PFAS are by ingesting contaminated food or water and by accidentally inhaling consumer products such as stain guard sprays, Higgins said.

The CDC says there are no known medical treatments available for removing “forever chemicals” from the human body. Blood testing for PFAS is limited and can’t be used to diagnose or predict any PFAS-related illnesses, though levels of some of the substances have been shown to decline in the body over time when exposure is limited.

Overall, there is a lack of consensus among experts as to whether any amounts of PFAS can be considered safe, according to the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. Higgins said research into the exposure risks faces unique challenges, including the difficulty in finding control groups who haven’t already been contaminated with PFAS.

“PFAS is one of the biggest environmental challenges of our generation,” he said. “We’re gonna be dealing with this problem for many, many years.”

This article originally published in the March 30, 2026 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.