The US Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed the first national drinking water standard for “forever chemicals” that are dang...
The new rule intends to set drinking water standards for six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.” PFAS are a family of ubiquitous synthetic chemicals that linger in the environment and the human body, where they can cause serious health problems.
Although there are thousands of PFAS chemicals, according to the National Institutes of Health, under the rule, water systems would have to monitor for six specific chemicals, notify the public about PFAS levels and work to reduce them if levels go above the standard allowed.
What are PFAS chemicals, and what are they doing to our health?
“I am thrilled to announce that EPA is taking yet another bold step to protect public health,” said US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan at a news conference on Tuesday in Wilmington, North Carolina. “Folks, this is a tremendous step forward in the right direction. We anticipate that when fully implemented, this rule will prevent thousands of deaths and reduce tens of thousands of serious PFAS related illnesses.”
Regan said the proposed rule would protect the health of people for generations. He characterized PFAS contamination as “one of the most pressing environmental and public health concerns in the modern world.”
The agency chose these chemicals because it has the clearest science about their impact on human health and said it is evaluating additional chemicals, as well.
The EPA’s proposed limits set the allowable levels for these chemicals so low that they could not be easily detected.
The proposal would regulate two chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, at 4 parts per trillion (ppt). For PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS and GenX chemicals, the EPA proposes not one standard for each but a limit for a mix of them.
Water systems would have to determine whether the levels of these PFAS pose a potential risk. They may need to install treatment or take other action to reduce PFAS levels, the agency said, and systems may also even need to switch to different water sources.
Found in homes across the country
The proposal would be one of the first new chemical standards that updates the Safe Drinking Water Act since 1996. The proposed standards would be much stricter than the EPA suggested in 2016, when its health advisories recommended PFAS concentrations in drinking water of no more than 70 ppt.
In June, based on the latest science, the EPA issued health advisories that said the chemicals are much more hazardous to human health than scientists originally thought and are probably more dangerous even at levels thousands of times lower than previously believed.
EPA Commissioner Regan established the EPA Council on PFAS as soon as he came into office in 2021.
“Despite previous administration’s anti-science stance which severely strained EPA financial and human capital, I charged this council with undertaking a comprehensive review of the problem and identifying solutions that we can implement immediately,” Regan said.
In October 2021, the EPA released its PFAS strategic roadmap. In November, the EPA shared a one-year progress report and set an internal deadline to propose this rule by the end of last year, but the proposal was going through an interagency review.
Now that the proposed rule is out, it will be open to a period of public comment. The EPA will take those comments into consideration and issue a final decision on the rule, expected later this year.
Public water systems generally have three years from the date of the regulation to comply, the agency said.
The chemicals have been widely used since the 1940s in hundreds of kinds of common household items, where they help repel water and oil. They can be found in water-repellent clothes, furniture and carpet, in nonstick pans, paints, cosmetics, cleaning products and food packaging, and in firefighting foams.
The extremely strong elemental bonds that make the chemicals repel oil and water also make it difficult for them to break down in the body or in the environment.
A 2019 study suggested that PFAS chemicals could be found in 98% of the US population.
The chemicals can primarily settle in the blood, kidney and liver, and exposure can lead to serious health problems like cancer, obesity, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, decreased fertility, liver damage and hormone suppression, according to the EPA.
Last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued guidelines for doctors to test, diagnose and treat the millions of people who have a history of elevated exposure to these chemicals.
Attempts at regulation
Manufacturing of PFAS chemicals has already started to change.
Manufacturer 3M recently announced it would stop making them by the end of 2025. The American Chemistry Council, an association that represents chemical makers, said that PFOA and PFOS were phased out of production by its members more than eight years ago. “We support restrictions on their use globally, and we support drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS based on the best available science,” the council said in an email to CNN. It does, however, say it that has “serious concerns” about the science that the EPA used to create the rule that it calls “conservative.”
At the federal level, the US Food and Drug Administration phased out the use of certain PFAS chemicals in 2016. The FDA and manufacturers also agreed in 2020 to phase out some PFAS chemicals from food packaging and other items that came into contact with food. However, FDA monitoring of the environment showed that the chemicals tend to linger, as the “forever” name implies.
High levels of man-made chemicals that can harm the immune system were found in the food packaging of popular fast-food restaurants and grocery store chains, according to a Consumer Reports investigation.
Dangerous chemicals found in food wrappers at major fast-food restaurants and grocery chains, report says
A replacement that many chemical companies have been using, GenX, may also be problematic, according to the EPA. Animal studies have shown that it may affect the liver, kidneys and immune system, and it might be linked to cancer.
In June, for the first time, the EPA issued final advisories for limits in drinking water of GenX, considered a replacement for PFOA, and PFBS, a replacement for PFOS: less than 10 ppt and 2,000 ppt, respectively.
The Biden administration has taken some steps to help eliminate exposure to this pollution. As a part of the 2022 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, $10 billion was made available for cleanup of contaminants like PFAS in drinking water.
In February, the EPA also announced $2 billion available to address contaminants like PFAS in drinking water in small, rural and disadvantaged communities. Regan said the Biden administration is asking Congress for more resources to clean up PFAS pollution.
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