U.S. EPA Wants To Prohibit Use Of A Drinking Water Contaminant Tied To Sudden Deaths
The nation’s foremost drinking water treatment regulator has announced that it is considering a new ban on a prominent chemical that could be harming consumers.
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency … proposed banning the cancer-causing chemical trichloroethylene, which can be found in consumer products including automobile brake cleaners, furniture care and arts and crafts spray coating,” the Associated Press reported. “The move would end a nearly four decade battle to ban the chemical known as TCE, which can cause sudden death or kidney cancer if a person is exposed to high levels of it, and other neurological harm even at lower exposure over a long period.”
Despite the links to adverse health impacts, the EPA has found that hundreds of millions of pounds of TCE is produced every year in the U.S., even with decades of high-profile environmental advocacy pointing to its dangerous ramifications for drinking water.
“TCE has been found in drinking water across the country,” The New York Times reported. “It was the subject of the 1995 best-selling book ‘A Civil Action,’ by Jonathan Harr, which documented TCE contamination in the water supply in Woburn, Mass., and was later turned into a movie.”
Now, empowered by a 2016 chemical safety act, the EPA wants to institute a ban that will stop TCE at its source.
“Under the EPA proposal, most uses of TCE, including those in processing commercial and consumer products, would be prohibited within one year,” per the Times. “For other uses the agency categorized as ‘limited,’ such as use in electric vehicle batteries and the manufacturing of certain refrigerants, there would be a longer transition period.”
It seems likely the agency could face a legal battle over its new proposal, with TCE manufacturers arguing such a ban is without scientific merit.
“The American Chemistry Council said in a statement that TCE has several important uses in packaging and in formulating products,” according to AP. “The proposed rule ‘is inconsistent with the underlying science,’ the council said, calling on the EPA to avoid unnecessarily restricting valuable industrial uses for the chemical.”
As the ban proposal moves forward, drinking water treatment operators and chemical manufacturers will want to watch closely.
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