USA: EPA plans to weaken rule curbing forever chemicals in drinking water

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EPA plans to weaken rule curbing forever chemicals in drinking water
The Environmental Protection Agency will rescind and reconsider drinking water standards for four chemicals that have been linked to a range of illnesses.

Washington Post - May 13, 2025

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to rescind and reconsider limits on four different “forever chemicals” under a landmark drinking water standard implemented last year by President Joe Biden, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

The drinking water rules were adopted as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to limit public exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), hazardous chemicals linked to range of serious illnesses. The original rule covered six common PFAS contaminants, including PFOA, a known human carcinogen, and PFOS, a likely carcinogen.

The EPA estimates that more than 158 million Americans are exposed to PFAS through their drinking water.

The agency plans to maintain current rules for PFOA and PFOS, though it will extend the deadline for compliance from 2029 to 2031.

In the documents reviewed by The Post, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that the changes will “protect Americans from PFOA and PFOS in their drinking water” while providing “common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance.”

The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.

The agency’s action follows the release by the White House in March of a 36-page “National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws” that detailed the dangers of PFAS, saying the chemicals “are harmful to human health, and they have been linked to harms affecting reproductive health, developmental delays in children, cancer, hormone imbalance.”

PFAS are a large class of persistent chemicals used to make a wide array of consumer and industrial products that repel grease, water, oil and heat. Scientists have found them in the blood of almost every American and have detected the compounds in remote regions of the planet, such as Antarctica.

The regulations gave the 66,000 public water systems in the United States until 2029 to comply with the new standards. Under the rule, the maximum contamination level for PFOA and PFOS was set at 4 parts per trillion. Three other compounds — PFHxS, PFNA and GenX — were limited to 10 parts per trillion. In addition, the water standard required utilities to use a “hazard index” to monitor a mixture of the chemicals, as well as a fourth, PFBS.

In June, trade associations representing water utilities filed suit against the EPA, challenging the science and data underlying the drinking water standard and its timetable for meeting it. According to the agency’s estimates, the standard would cost utilities about $1.5 billion a year.

Under the agency’s new plan, according to the documents reviewed by The Post, the regulations covering PFHxS, PFNA, GenX, and PFBS will be rescinded and reconsidered. The agency plans to begin a new rulemaking process in the fall and to issue the new rule next spring. The agency also plans to start a program called PFAS OUT to “share resources, tools, funding and technical assistance to help utilities meet the federal drinking water standards.”

Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group that is a party to the lawsuit, said the Safe Drinking Water Act’s “anti-backsliding” provision bars the agency from repealing or weakening the drinking water standard.

“The law is very clear that the EPA can’t repeal or weaken the drinking water standard. Any effort to do so will clearly violate what Congress has required for decades,” Olson said. “It shows that this administration doesn’t really care about protecting people’s drinking water from toxic forever chemicals that endanger the health of over 100 million Americans.”

The American Water Works Association, a trade group that sued the EPA over the PFAS rule, did not provide a comment, saying it would wait until the official EPA announcement before considering a response.

Linda Birnbaum, the former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said the agency’s decision to remove restrictions on the known substitutions for PFOS and PFOA was concerning.

“It’s too bad. We know these chemicals are dangerous. We know their adverse health effects. The more we study them, the more problems we face,” Birnbaum said. “If anything, the science is stronger today that it was a year or two years ago.”

GenX has been linked to kidney and liver toxicity, immune and development effects and cancer in rats, according to an EPA toxicity assessment.

Emily Donovan, who lives near Wilmington, North Carolina, an area affected by the release of GenX into the Cape Fear River, said that communities will bear the brunt of the EPA’s decision.

“The idea that they want to rescind and reconsider GenX is a victory for chemical companies,” said Donovan, who co-founded a grassroots advocacy group called Clean Cape Fear. “This isn’t a win for American public health.”

SOURCE:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... ater-rule/