Drinking water of millions of Americans contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’

Water of about 26 million is contaminated as new data offers the most robust look into exactly which communities are polluted

Drinking water consumed by millions of Americans from hundreds of communities spread across the United States is contaminated with dangerous levels of toxic chemicals, according to testing data released on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The data shows that drinking water systems serving small towns to large cities - from tiny Collegeville, Pennsylvania, to Fresno, California - contain measurable levels of so-called forever chemicals", a family of durable compounds long used in a variety of commercial products but that are now known to be harmful.