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The House is expected to pass legislation this week that would require the Environmental Protection Agency to set standards to limit the amount of toxic fluorinated chemicals (known collectively as PFAS or forever chemicals because they do not break down) that can safely be found in drinking water. But regardless of what Congress does, and the Senate is unlikely to pass the House bill according to a leading Republican late last night, the White House said in a statement that the President would veto any legislation because it would “bypass well-established processes, procedures, and legal requirements of the Nation’s most fundamental environmental laws….”
Why This Matters: So much for crystal clear waters. The administration had promised that EPA would issue new regulations creating limits on PFAS contamination in rivers and drinking water by the end of 2019, but they failed to do so. The President prefers to keep his promises to industry, which lobbied the White House and Republican Members of Congress against requiring water utilities and other companies from having to install technology to remove PFAS from their outflows. Of course — it is always about what industry needs — forget the thousands of service members and their families on military installations and the 1400 communities with PFAS contaminating their water systems. Not to mention that it is found in the drinking water of nearly 1 in 3 Americans.
EPA’s Failure to Regulate PFAS
The EPA, according to the Environmental Working Group, has long ignored the PFAS problem — it first learned from 3M Company in 1998 that these chemicals are toxic, and in 2001 the Company shared with the agency internal studies documenting the health risks associated with PFAS chemicals. In 2006 EPA’s Science Advisory Board found that PFOA was a likely human carcinogen, but still, no regulations were issued — only guidance, which it issued it issued in 2009 and established a provisional health advisory for the chemicals. The current guidance for PFAS is no more than 70 parts per trillion of PFAS in water, but Democrats and public health groups say a lower standard is needed to protect public health. For example, the state of New Hampshire is currently fighting to impose a standard of 12 parts per trillion (ppt) for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), 15 ppt for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), 18 ppt for perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxs), and 11 ppt for perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA).
What’s In the Bill?
According to The Hill, the bill does several important things to fight PFAS pollution, including:
requiring PFAS to be covered under the hazardous waste cleanup law;
imposing a five-year moratorium on the development of new PFAS chemicals;
mandating new regulations for production and cleanup of such toxic chemicals;
requiring the EPA to regulate PFAS air pollution under the Clean Air Act; and
creating standards for the proper disposal of PFAS chemicals.
By Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer Over 70% of the drinking water in Orange County, California comes from groundwater. But historic manufacturing nearby has polluted it due to the improper discarding of toxic chemicals. The LA Times reports that there are three major cleanup projects involving groundwater beneath 22 Californian cities, including Anaheim, Santa Ana, […]
On Saturday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for Manatee County, Florida as a wastewater reservoir at the Piney Point facility was on the verge of collapsing and causing a catastrophic situation. As the New York Times reported, the reservoir holds nearly 400 million gallons of wastewater from a former phosphate mine […]
The Supreme Court handed the state of Georgia an overwhelming victory yesterday in a long-brewing water feud with the state of Florida. In the end, it boiled (bad pun) down to Florida’s inability to show its “injury” could be remedied if it received more water.
Why This Matters: Florida was its own worst enemy in the case.
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