The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized the nation’s first drinking water standard for “forever chemicals,” a group of persistent human-made chemicals that can pose a health risk to people at even the smallest detectable levels of exposure.
The new rules are part of the Biden administration’s efforts to limit pollution from these per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which can persist in the environment for centuries. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to an increased risk of certain types of cancer, low birth weights, high cholesterol, and negative effects on the liver, thyroid and immune system.
EPA officials estimate that the federal rule will reduce PFAS exposure in drinking water for about 100 million people.
This is the first time the EPA has set a drinking water standard for a new contaminant since 1996. Some states — including Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington — have already passed drinking water standards for certain PFAS.
Advertisem*nt
“Everyone should be able to turn on the tap and know that the glass of water they fill is safe to drink and free of pollutants,” Brenda Mallory, the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said on a call with reporters Tuesday.
Robert Bilott, a Cincinnati environmental attorney whose fight against forever chemicals has led to major class-action settlements against DuPont and 3M, said in a statement that the EPA’s drinking water standard is “the culmination of decades of work” to raise awareness about the risks of these chemicals.
PFAS are “the most toxic, persistent, and bioaccumulative chemicals ever found in our nation’s drinking water supply,” Bilott said.
Reducing chemicals in drinking water
Nearly every American has measurable amounts of PFAS in their blood, and close to half of the nation’s tap water has one or more types of PFAS, according to an estimate by the U.S. Geological Survey.
“We’ve been waiting for federal regulation of these chemicals for a long time,” said Linda Birnbaum, the former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a scholar in residence at Duke University. “We know that drinking water is a very significant source of the contamination.”
The federal drinking water standard will require water utilities to test for and reduce levels of some of the most concerning forms of PFAS — which are called PFOA and PFOS — to 4 parts per trillion or less. Agency officials have said the limit is the lowest level that can be feasibly measured.
But the EPA has previously reported that a lifetime exposure of even 0.004 and 0.02 parts per trillion of the two forever chemicals could compromise a person’s immune and cardiovascular systems. The rule also sets additional limits for other individual PFAS as well as mixtures of the compounds.
Advertisem*nt
“There’s no doubt that these chemicals have been important for certain industries and consumer uses,” Michael Regan, the administrator of the EPA, said Tuesday. “But there’s also no doubt that many of these chemicals can be harmful to our health and environment.”
Pushback from the water industry
The federal regulation applies to 66,000 public water systems in the United States. Agency officials say most utilities will need to conduct more monitoring, but only about six to 10 percent of the utilities will need to “take action” to meet the federal standard. Water utilities will have three years to “complete their initial monitoring” for PFAS and will need to comply with the drinking water regulations starting in 2029.
Agency officials estimate that the drinking water standard will cost water utilities around $1.5 billion per year. But officials also said the health benefits from the new rule — reducing the incidence of cancer, heart attacks and strokes — will exceed projected costs.
Advertisem*nt
The Biden administration has dedicated $9 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure package to fund efforts to mitigate PFAS in water systems. And an additional $12 billion from the package are for general improvements to drinking water infrastructure.
Robert Powelson, the president and chief executive of the National Association of Water Companies (NAWC), a trade group that represents private utilities, said in a statement that the costs of the federal regulation “will disproportionately fall on water and wastewater customers.”
“Water utilities do not create or produce PFAS chemicals,” Powelson said. “Yet water systems and their customers are on the front lines of paying for the cleanup of this contamination.”
The American Water Works Association (AWWA), a trade group, said in a statement that it estimates the cost could be “more than three times higher than the agency’s calculations.”
Advertisem*nt
"The best way to keep our drinking water free from PFAS is to protect our precious source waters,” the group said. “AWWA continues to encourage EPA to follow through on its commitments to address harmful PFAS manufacturing, uses and releases to the environment.”
Environmental groups praised the action.
“I think a lot of us that have worked in this field for a long time wondered if the EPA would ever be able to get this rolled out,” said Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “I think the agency, frankly, should be commended for getting this thing out despite all the very strong headwinds of opposition from industry."
An alphabet soup of forever chemicals
PFAS are a broad class of thousands of carbon-fluorine bonded compounds that have been used since the 1940s to provide repellant and resistant properties to materials. The characteristics that make PFAS so effective are also why these chemicals can persist in nature for years. PFAS can be found in a range of products, including stain-resistant carpet, non-stick cookware, solar panels and artificial turf.
Advertisem*nt
“Personally, I think this is a class of chemicals that is very useful but not always necessary,” Birnbaum said. “It’s really important as we go forward that we start saying: Is this absolutely essential?”
Although there are thousands of PFAS compounds, the new rules focus on limits for an alphabet soup of six specific PFAS chemicals. They include PFOA, a known human carcinogen and PFOS, a likely carcinogen, which are limited to 4 parts per trillion. Three other compounds — PFHxS, PFNA, GenX — will have individual limits of 10 parts per trillion.
The EPA will also require water systems to measure for a mixture of at least two of these four chemicals — PFHxS, PFNA, GenX and PFBS — using a hazard index, a tool to measure “the cumulative risk of a mixture of chemicals,” said Melanie Benesh, the vice president of government affairs at Environmental Working Group.
Advertisem*nt
Although the new rules only target six chemicals, the additional efforts by water utilities to filter out these specific PFAS will probably “significantly reduce” other PFAS in the water supply, as well, said David Andrews, the deputy director of investigations and a senior scientist at Environmental Working Group.
Beginning in 2027, water systems will need to tell customers if the utility detects certain PFAS listed in the federal regulation. Then, by 2029, the utilities will need to notify the public of a violation to one of the PFAS limits no later than 30 days after the water system learns of it.
Maxine Joselow contributed to this report.
