EPA to formally regulate PFAS in drinking water for the first time

The Environmental Protection Agency has established the first-ever federal regulations for six types of toxic PFAS in drinking water.

“This is the most significant action on PFAS the EPA has ever taken,” said Administrator Michael Regan, who served as North Carolina’s Secretary of the Environment from 2017 until early 2021. “The result is a comprehensive and life-changing rule, one that will improve the health and vitality of so many communities across our country.”

Regan is scheduled to make a formal announcement this morning in Fayetteville.

The new standards will reduce PFAS exposure for roughly 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses, Regan said.

Exposure to PFAS has been linked to multiple health problems, including thyroid and liver disorders, reproductive and fetal development problems, immune system deficiencies, high cholesterol, and kidney and testicular cancers.

“It’s monumental,” Emily Donovan, co-founder of the advocacy group Clean Cape Fear, told Newsline. “For our community, it’s validation. It recognizes we knew what we were talking about. When a lot of elected leaders were saying the drinking water met all federal and state standards, they were speaking out of liability, not public health. The science was clear. The science was right.”

What utilities are affected?

Nationwide, the new standards are expected to affect about 4,100 to 6,700 utilities that have, or are suspected to have, PFAS in their water supply. This is equivalent to 6% to 10% of the total water systems in the U.S., according to senior administration officials. There are about 5,200 public water systems in the North Carolina, but only certain types are subject to the new rules.These include community water systems that serve the same people year-round, like municipal or privately owned utilities, such as Aqua NCNon-transient community water systems also must adhere to the new limits. These are defined as a public water system that regularly supplies water to at least 25 of the same people at least six months per year, such as hospitals and schools with their own systems. There are some exceptions: Utilities don’t have to monitor for the compounds if they buy finished drinking water from another system; that requirement falls on the wholesaler.

The six chemicals targeted by the EPA are among 15,000 types of PFAS, short for perfluoro- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They are also known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment, where they can linger for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Traditional water treatment systems cannot remove the compounds.

The maximum contaminant levels, also known as MCLs, are legally enforceable. The affected utilities have three years to complete initial monitoring, after which they must conduct regular testing to ensure they are in compliance.

Starting in 2029, the affected utilities must comply with the MCLs. Utilities also must include the results and any violations in their annual consumer confidence reports sent to customers.

In North Carolina, sampling conducted by scientists, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and the utilities themselves from 2019 through 2023 showed 33 public water systems reported at least one of the now-regulated contaminants at levels above the MCL.

Those numbers are only estimates. Since those rounds of testing, some water systems, such as Pittsboro and the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, have installed expensive treatment technology at their plants. And other utilities have not yet sampled for the compounds under the latest federal Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule; they have until 2026 to fully report their results.

La’Meshia Whittington sat on the state’s Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board and is a member of Black Firefighters Fighting PFAS Collective, which advocates for regulations on toxic firefighting foam. “The fight against PFAS is a story of communities’ commitment to perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds and consequences that span several decades,” Whittington said in a statement provided by the Biden administration.

“The establishment of national standards for PFAS in drinking water means justice for my own ancestors, for my family and the countless communities I serve who have had to bury loved ones due to an invisible enemy lurking in our drinking water.”

The Biden administration has allocated $1 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help utilities test for the compounds, to install additional drinking water treatment systems, and, if necessary, connect to alternate water supplies. Private well owners can also qualify for a portion of the funds.

But that amount will be “woefully inadequate in offsetting the burden,” Kenneth Waldroup, executive director of Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, wrote in his comments to the EPA about the rule.

CFPUA serves about 200,000 people. It sources 80% of its drinking water from the Cape Fear River, long polluted with GenX released by the Chemours facility, which is located 100 miles upstream.

“While such regulations are necessary, we note the most cost-effective, equitable approach to reducing Americans’ exposure to PFAS in their drinking water is keeping PFAS out of source water in the first place,” Waldroup wrote. “Those who manufacture PFAS or use it in their manufacturing should be the primary focus of EPA’s regulatory efforts, and they should be the ones to bear the burden of compliance with regulations regarding the PFAS they discharge into sources of drinking water.”

A senior Biden administration official said that when monetized, the total benefits – fewer cancers, lower incidence of heart attacks, reduced birth complications – exceed the billion-plus dollars available to utilities. “The benefits are well worth taking into account and ensuring the rule is put in place,” the official said.

In 2017, CFPUA learned from scientific researchers that GenX was present in the drinking water. Since then, the utility has spent $46 million to install a granular activated carbon system, which has nearly eliminated PFAS levels in drinking water. It costs an additional $5 million annually to operate the system — costs that are borne by ratepayers.

Waldroup wrote that the cost of CFPUA’s single treatment system is more than the total amount of money available to utilities nationwide, as part of Drinking Water State Revolving Funds. Loans from these funds help water systems comply with federal standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Dana Sargent, executive director of Cape Fear River Watch, applauded the EPA’s new standards, but added that the agency must go further. “[The EPA] refuses to regulate the corporations directly by requiring them to stop the pollution at the source, but instead put the burden on utilities to either filter this dangerous filth, or do the government’s job to pressure companies to stop discharging it,” Sargent told Newsline. “Make no mistake, utilities signed up for this and are well aware that it is their job to ensure the drinking water they’re selling is safe. Some of our utilities have met that charge and others are waiting for the feds to force their hands.”

The Environmental Working Group, based in Washington, D.C., has been studying PFAS for 20 years. The group found in 2004 that the compounds were present in the umbilical cord blood of all 10 babies born in America whom they tested.

These findings, EWG President Ken Cook said, mirrored a “secret internal company document that revealed DuPont had found its Teflon chemical in the umbilical cord blood of one of its workers in 1981 – decades before we did our study.

“The company never told the government. It never told America,” Cook said. “And these chemicals have no business in our babies.”

EPA Administrator Regan said he is confident that the new rule can withstand scientific and legal scrutiny. “We have designed a very durable rule that is well within our statutory authority that begins to protect people from harmful pollutants that are showing up in their drinking water. It’s a good day for people in this country who have long borne the impact of pollution from these forever chemicals.”

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NC Newsline, like Oregon Capital Chronicle, is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Rob Schofield for questions: [email protected]. Follow NC Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.