Professor Ian Cousins, the panel’s environmental expert, said swimming in the sea was still safe.
“If you want to swim in the water, you’re fine, but there can sometimes be an accumulation of foam on the shore and you want to discourage your kids going and playing with that because the PFAS concentrations can be extremely high,” he said.
The panel collected two sea foam samples last summer, finding PFAS levels of 1,005 nanograms per litre at St Brelade’s Bay and 1,806 nanograms per litre at Le Grouet slipway near Corbiere.
By contrast, the four PFAS chemicals tested were not detected in seawater samples around Jersey. The report said this was expected because “normal seawater levels are often so low that standard small samples cannot measure them”.
As waves and wind create naturally occurring sea foam, the chemicals become concentrated in the foam and “stick to bubbles”, even though the surrounding seawater contains much lower levels.
Professor Cousins said this was not unique to Jersey: “You’ll see that in any coastline on the UK as well, the seawater around Jersey isn’t particularly contaminated. It’s the same as anywhere else,” he said.
The panel also highlighted sea spray as another potential way PFAS could move from the sea on to beaches and nearby land, although it said “further research is needed” to understand how people were exposed to the chemicals.
Ministers are due to respond to the report in more detail later this year.
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