29 October 2019: Accelerated route to Temporary Background Values for PFAS in soil

The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has urged RIVM to derive temporary national background values for PFAS as quickly as possible. The background value indicates what concentrations of PFAS can be expected in relatively clean places in the Netherlands. As the data would not be available until 2020, the Ministry has now asked for deriving a background value at an accelerated pace. For this purpose, RIVM uses the available measurement data from the Dutch Provinces.

The Temporary National Background Value must be safe for people and the environment. RIVM has already set risk limits for PFAS in soil. In addition, the uncertainty of the limited data collection will be taken into account when determining the background value: we have no data from the entire country and the dataset is limited in size. In the meantime, RIVM is taking measurements in the Netherlands to derive a definitive background value in 2020.