EPA unveils strategy to deal with chemicals
Residents suffering from exposure critical of plan
FOUNTAIN» The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday unveiled a national plan for dealing with two of the hundreds of toxic chemicals that have contaminated water in Colorado and across the country, but the announcement did little to pacify residents here who worry their health is already harmed.
“It makes me angry,” said Liz Rosenbaum, 43, whose blood test results show elevated levels of a perfluorinated chemical from a firefighting foam used for decades at Peterson Air Force Base. “I mean, we’re all smart enough to know not to dump paint and oil on the ground, and nobody on that base ever had an ah-hah moment?”
In addition to the contamination tracked to Peterson, perfluorinated chemicals have been detected in north metro Denver and near a firehouse west of Boulder.
EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said agency officials will by the end of the year propose a national limit for PFOA and PFOs, two of the perfluorinated chemicals that have spread from military bases and other sources into drinking water. EPA officials said Thursday that in the meantime they will use a nonbinding health advisory limit of 70 parts per trillion to guide cleanups of contaminated water. The agency also will begin to treat PFOA and PFOs as hazardous substances.
“We’ve been on top of all these issues,” Wheeler said while announcing the plan in Philadelphia.
Fountain already has a new plant with a filtering system, funded for now by the Air Force, to remove perfluorinated contaminants from municipal water supplies. The Sierra Club is trying to get residents to use bottled water and wants to enlist Colorado College students and chemistry professors to help independently track and measure contamination in groundwater.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment helped track the spread of the chemicals but stopped testing after 2016 because of a lack of funds.
Agency spokeswoman Meghan Hughes said the Air Force is now responsible for providing contamination data, although her agency will work with Peterson, the EPA and local water providers to oversee the testing.
CDPHE officials have said they are working on an inventory of sites across Colorado where perfluorinated chemicals may have contaminated soil and water.
Last year, the EPA convened state officials to discuss ways to deal with perfluorinated chemicals, a toxic family of synthetic substances characterized by a bond that does not break down. They then hosted sessions with residents in contaminated areas in Colorado, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Kansas.
The action plan “is the most comprehensive cross-agency plan to address an emerging chemical of concern ever undertaken by EPA,” Wheeler said.
The EPA has faced increasing public concerns about the chemicals, which have improved firefighting foam that puts out fuel fires, nonstick cookware and dental floss,
stain-resistant carpet and fast-food packaging but are also linked to health problems including high cholesterol, low birth weight, kidney and immune-system ailments and testicular cancer.
Public health and envi- ronment groups called the EPA’s action plan deficient.
“This is a non-action plan, designed to delay effective regulation of these dangerous chemicals in our drinking water,” Food and Water Watch director Wenonah Hauter said. “The big winners today are polluting corporations, not the people affected by this industrial waste in their drinking water supplies.” Fran Silva-Blayney, a leader of a Fountain watershed protection group, said the state needs to take a stronger leadership role.
“At the very least, in the face of a lack of federal guidance from the EPA, Colorado should set a legally enforceable limit … in order to protect our Colorado communities,” she said.