Donovan appeared on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Sept. 6, to call for action on toxic PFAS contamination that threatens many more than just North Carolinians.
Thirty-eight states have found PFAS in groundwater, she said.
The absence of both federal drinking water standards as well as regulation under federal Superfund law is creating uncertainty for regulators and communities, he said.
Testing in states like Michigan is turning up a wide range of PFAS chemicals – much more than just PFOS and PFOA, the two with an EPA health advisory level.
The EPA was represented at the hearing by Peter Grevatt, the office of groundwater and drinking water director who has been visiting multiple states this summer as part of the agency’s plan to develop a nationwide regulatory framework for PFAS by January.
He stopped short of committing the EPA to developing a national drinking water standard for PFAS, saying one of the actions the agency is "committed to is to consider whether we should consider maximum contaminant level for PFOA and PFOS."
In response to a question by Rep. Fred Upton, R-St Joseph, Grevatt said the agency has no plans to reconsider the existing health advisory level for PFOS and PFOA, which has come under significant fire this summer after the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) published a draft report with PFAS risk levels which are substantially lower.
Upton pressed the Department of Defense deputy assistant secretary Maureen Sullivan on why testing results at the Battle Creek Air National Guard Base were held up in Pentagon bureaucracy for months when the state of Michigan was able to respond to high levels of PFAS found in the city of Parchment water this summer in a matter of days.
Upton held a sheet with testing results showing that groundwater is contaminated with PFOS and PFOA at 76,000-ppt at the base.
Isaacs said the state of Michigan has been disappointed with the overall pace of military response to PFAS contamination, pointing out that the linear process for investigating contamination under Superfund law, or CERCLA, allows for significant delay.