The Environmental Protection Agency proposed strict limits on six types of "forever chemicals" in drinking water Tuesday. The announcement caps a years-long campaign from scientists, environmentalists and public health advocates who have urged the agency to stop the industrial chemicals from invading Americans' bodies by way of their taps.
PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been linked to an array of health problems, including some cancers, immune issues and developmental risks. Two of the oldest and best-studied, PFOS and PFOA, are regularly found in the environment even though U.S. manufacturers no longer produce them. The forever chemical moniker comes from their tendency to linger in human bodies and resist breaking down.
The chemicals first became a public concern in Minnesota in 2004, when it was revealed that Maplewood-based 3M had disposed of large volumes of the chemicals in leaky landfills in the eastern Twin Cities metro. Today, the state has its own standards for four of the six chemicals to be regulated by the EPA, as well as two more not covered by the EPA, and officials were optimistic that Minnesota would be able to carry out the federal rules.
"We've had this almost two decades of head start, and we've built a framework in Minnesota of existing data," said Sandeep Burman, the section manager for drinking water protection at the state Department of Health. "It's unfortunate, but we're used to dealing with PFAS."
The announcement marks the first time the EPA has proposed drinking water limits on PFAS chemicals that can be enforced with fines or other measures. The other two chemicals covered by the EPA's proposal but unregulated at the state level haven't been found in Minnesota, Burman said.
The levels proposed by the EPA for PFOS and PFOA are at 4 parts per trillion, or nearly at the limit of what can be detected, though MDH's lab can turn up slightly smaller concentrations. For the other four PFAS, the EPA proposes combining them to create one standard — in an acknowledgement that the chemicals, even in small amounts, may do more harm mixed together than in individual doses.
3M, which pioneered the chemicals and used them for decades in products like Scotchgard, has announced it will stop making any type of PFAS by the end of 2025. But in a statement Tuesday, spokesman Sean Lynch wrote that the EPA's proposed water rules "lack a sound scientific basis," and that the agency didn't show the rules "are necessary to protect public health or the environment."
But at a news conference in North Carolina announcing the new rules, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said that the drinking water limits would "prevent thousands of deaths and prevent tens of thousands of serious PFAS-related illnesses."
