Waterkeeper Alliance Condemns EPA’s Dangerous Decision to Weaken Limits on Toxic “Forever Chemicals” in U.S. Drinking Water
By: Waterkeeper Alliance
Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to weaken federal limits on PFAS “forever chemicals” in drinking water. The agency intends to rescind current standards for PFHxS, PFNA, and GenX (HFPO-DA), and reconsider the regulatory approach for the Hazard Index mixture, which includes these substances plus PFBS. Additionally, EPA plans to delay compliance deadlines for PFOA and PFOS and introduce a federal exemption framework. According to Waterkeeper Alliance, these actions add up to a clear concession to polluters.
Marc Yaggi, Chief Executive Officer of Waterkeeper Alliance issued the following statement in response:
“Today’s decision makes one thing clear: this government is siding with polluters over people. Rolling back protections against PFAS is a direct assault on public health and clean water. Millions of people in America now face greater risks of cancer, immune damage, and other serious health threats from preventable exposure to known toxic pollutants, while EPA abandons its core duty to protect them. Administrator Zeldin has acknowledged the dangers of PFAS. If he meant a word of it, he must reverse this decision and strengthen protections, not gut them. Communities need real action, not more broken promises.”
Specifically, the Alliance cites the weakening and delay of the drinking water standard for PFAS as a violation of the ‘anti-backsliding’ provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act. Under the law, EPA can only set regulations for pollutants in drinking water that “maintain or provide for greater protection of human health.” Any new or revised standard must maintain or enhance public health protections. Otherwise, rescinding the regulations for a majority of regulated PFAS types, creating compliance loopholes, and delaying implementation would violate federal law.
EPA’s proposed extension of deadlines from 2029 to 2031, could also have serious ramifications for the economy and human health. Researchers at NYU Langone Health, estimate the economic burden of these PFAS health effects at a cost of a minimum of $5.5 billion and as much as $63 billion per year. This is an economic burden unfairly passed on to the public who is poisoned while they wait for a problem to be addressed that EPA has known about since 1998.
Since the 1950s, PFAS chemicals have been widely used across consumer, commercial, and industrial products, and have polluted our waterways via manufacturers who have benefited from lack of regulation and loopholes. While the Trump administration claims to be taking the first significant step on PFAS, the reality is that federal efforts began under the Obama administration. In 2009, EPA took initial steps to limit exposure to long-chain perfluorinated chemicals by restricting new uses, reviewing chemical substitutes, and signaling plans for stronger regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act. However, all federal actions to date have been too limited in scope and ultimately insufficient to curb the widespread contamination and health risks posed by PFAS.
To fill in a significant data gap and strengthen calls for stronger regulations, expanded research, increased funding, and more effective treatment technologies—especially in communities already facing disproportionate impacts—Waterkeeper Alliance is conducting a multi-phase PFAS monitoring program. In 2022, the organization released its first report based on samples collected by more than 100 local Waterkeeper groups, finding PFAS in 83% of 114 tested rivers, lakes, and streams—often at dangerously high levels. The second phase of sampling, recently completed and currently being compiled into a report for release this summer, focused on sites near wastewater treatment plants and sludge application fields.