EPA plan to rid drinking water from toxic chemicals sparks divisions in Washington
THE Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA) is calling it “comprehensive” and “historic.” Congressional Democrats are calling it another sign of “complacency” on the part of Trump administration regulators.
The EPA’s long-awaited “action plan” on keeping a class of long-lasting chemicals out of Americans’ drinking water, unveiled Thursday, is already turning into another bone of contention in Washington.
It had the potential to be a rare area of bipartisan agreement: Members of both parties agree that more must be done to control contamination from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl compounds - also known as PFAS. It is widely accepted that these “forever chemicals” - they don’t break down naturally - are associated with plethora of health problems, including infertility and certain cancers, and need to be kept out of drinking water. But Democrats and activists say the government is not moving quickly enough. The agency on Thursday said it was setting long- and short-term goals for controlling PFAS. “We’re protecting Americans’ drinking water, which is very important,” acting administrator Andrew Wheeler told ABC. “We need to make sure that every American regardless of Zip code has safe, reliable drinking water.”
One of those goals is to set a legal limit on the concentration of two of the most commonly detected chemicals, called PFOS and PFOA, that can appear in drinking water.
“I want to be crystal clear about this - our intent is to establish a (maximum c o n t a mi n a n t level) for PFOA and PFOS,” David Ross, assistant administrator in the EPA’s water office, told The Post’s Brady Dennis and other reporters.
But critics, including Democrats in Congress and environmental activists in contaminated communities, say that scientists have ample evidence to set those limits because manufacturers have been using them for decades to make a long list of products, including perhaps most notably Teflon-coated cookware.
“It is unacceptable for the administration to drag its heels when it comes to the health and safety of our drinking water,” Sen Michael Bennet, D- Colorado, said in a statement. But the agency isn’t setting that limit just yet because, according to Ross, it wants to make sure any new rules will be defensible in court. — WP-Bloomberg