At the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment — where state officials have begun making a list of sites where perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs, may have been spilled — agency chiefs say they will enforce any limit the EPA sets.
Our water is contaminated.
As more sites are found, more pressure is put on limited state and federal resources.” In Colorado, PFCs contamination showed up most recently last month in South Adams County Water and Sanitation District wells that supplied raw water for 50,000 residents across 65 square miles of north metro Denver.
CDPHE officials do not routinely test groundwater.
“An additional purpose of this effort is to help us understand the scope of PFAS issues across the state, to better inform our regulatory approach to PFAS moving forward.” Some states have set or are considering state-level regulatory limits — as low as 1 ppt in Vermont.
Colorado health officials have not set a statewide regulatory limit.
“We don’t have regulatory authority,” Richardson said.
“This is a new type of contamination that’s been under the regulatory radar since the EPA was formed, and the EPA is just turning their attention to it.
“CDPHE supports EPA following the process in the Safe Drinking Water Act,” agency officials from multiple divisions said in a prepared response to Denver Post queries.
“We would like the EPA to do more research — on all of the 3,000 chemicals — and develop an appropriate response that addresses the risks.”