EPA Releases Drinking Water Guidelines For PFOA, PFOS
By Peak Johnson
The U.S. EPA released updated drinking water guidelines for PFOA and PFOS as the contaminants began to emerge regularly in regional water supplies.
The agency “issued a lifetime drinking water health advisory of 70 parts per trillion for human exposure to the manmade chemical,” per Albany’s Times Union.
These remnants of past industrial chemical innovation exist in rivers and aquifers that supply drinking water to millions in the U.S., potentially putting health at risk. Dissolved in the water are perfluorinated compounds that gave rise to iconic household brands such as 3M’s Scotchgard and DuPont’s Teflon, Chemical and Engineering News reported.
In places such as Parkersburg, WV, where a DuPont plant used PFOA for decades, residents are using bottles of water instead of drinking unfiltered taps because of contamination of the local water supply. DuPont and other firms that made or used PFOA are likely to be on the hook financially for personal injury claims or cleanup for years to come.
PFOA, sometimes known as C8, has been linked to disease including high cholesterol, thyroid disease, and some cancers.
Neither PFOA nor PFOS is made or used in the U.S. for manufacturing anymore, but the chemicals persist in the environment because of the strength of the carbon-fluorine bond.
Although the EPA began working with the fluorochemicals industry more than a decade ago, some say that the agency had been slow to provide advice to health officials according to Chemical and Engineering News.
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer was one of the most outspoken advocates urging the EPA to update its drinking water guidelines for the chemical contaminants, according to WAMC Public Radio.
The industrial chemicals have recently turned up in water supplies in Newburgh, NY, and Hoosick Falls, NY.
To read more about contamination guidelines visit Water Online’s Drinking Water Contaminant Removal Solutions Center.