The class of toxic chemicals, commonly used in nonstick cookware, firefighting foam, and many consumer products, has been discovered in high concentrations in cities near military bases and industrial chemical manufacturing plants.
Exposure to PFAS has been linked to various cancers in adults and children, kidney disease, birth defects, and developmental disorders.
The hearing comes amid a wave of criticism over the EPA’s delayed response to regulating PFAS despite decades of private lawsuits against chemical manufacturers and scientific data showing its human and environmental health hazards.
The bills, known as the PFAS Accountability Act of 2018 in the House and PFAS Accountability Act (S. 3381) in the Senate, would require federal agencies to work with impacted states to “facilitate testing, monitoring, removal, and remediation” of PFAS from contaminated drinking water resources.
(At the hearing, when pressed on whether the ATSDR report would trigger the EPA to revise their PFAS health advisory limit, EPA representative Peter C. Grevatt stated that “based on current science our value is supported” and that “there’s a difference” between ATSDR’s scientific focus and EPA’s.)
This is a complicated process that often takes years to complete: at yesterday’s hearing, in response to repeated demands from senators for a timeline of when the EPA would set an enforceable maximum contaminant level, Grevatt countered that the agency is required to execute a series of time-consuming steps outlined in the Safe Water Drinking Act.
The agency scheduled a series of “listening sessions” in impacted communities across the country this summer.
Everywhere we use the bathroom, the contamination will spread.” At the hearing, members of communities with contaminated drinking water demanded that the EPA fast- track regulation, and shoulder the financial burdens of site remediation.
In 2015, parents discovered that the drinking water supplied to the daycare center from the base had high concentrations of PFAS; now, Amico’s children must undergo multiple blood tests and monitoring for signs of developmental complications.
“The fear of the unknown,” said Amico, was the worst part of discovering high levels of PFAS in a community.