A Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection board unexpectedly voted Tuesday morning to order a review of PFOA in drinking water, after being petitioned by the Bristol Borough-based environmental nonprofit Delaware Riverkeeper Network.
“There seemed to be a lot of interest in this … they had obviously read the petition and had taken on looking at the issue in a serious way,” Carluccio said.
In an email earlier this month, DEP press secretary Neil Shader said that once the board votes to accept such a petition, DEP staff must study the chemical in question and make a formal recommendation to the board about whether a regulation should be set, and if so, the level of the chemical.
If approved, every water authority in the state would be required to test for the chemical and install filtration systems if it’s found above the safe limit.
Typically, states that set their own drinking water standards employ staff such as toxicologists to study chemicals and provide scientific justifications for safe limits.
The DEP has no such staff, so it typically relies on national standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
A similar model exists in New Jersey, where the state’s Drinking Water Quality Institute uses an advisory board to study chemicals and make recommendations for safe drinking water standards.
The Riverkeeper Network petition to Pennsylvania calls for an even lower level — a maximum of just 6 ppt.
“We’re paying for it one way or another.” In a email earlier this month, DEP’s Shader said there is no time limit on when the agency will make a recommendation on PFOA to the Environmental Quality Board.
However, Carluccio said the DEP staff said Tuesday the agency aims to make a recommendation by June 2018.