Washington – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) outlined a national plan Thursday to deal with public health risks of pollution caused by a family of chemicals used in many household products, including those produced by Minnesota-based 3M Co.
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters Thursday that the EPA initiative is moving toward classifying PFAS as a hazardous substance under the EPA’s Superfund program, allowing the EPA to clean up sites and force polluters to pay.
Environmental and consumer groups said the EPA’s plan doesn’t go far enough.
They quickly challenged Wheeler’s decision not to push immediately for a national standard or other measures that will to lower allowable amounts of PFAS in drinking and groundwater.
No mandatory national standard exists for allowable levels of PFAS, only a federal advisory level.
Wheeler said Thursday that EPA feels "70 parts per trillion is a safe level for drinking water."
But Minnesota’s limits, like the federal limits, are "advisory rules, not regulatory standards, " said Jim Kelly, the state’s manager of environmental surveillance and assessments.
Wheeler said EPA will recommend mandatory PFAS toxicity standards by the end of the year but could not say how long the process of approval and implementation would take.
PFAS were discovered in drinking water in eastern Twin Cities in 2004.
"We’re ahead of most states already," said the MPCA’s Smith.

View Slideshow 1 of 4 Senior level officials from the Department of Defense were in Newburgh Thursday, where they held a public forum on the PFOS water contamination.
That August, New York state designated Stewart Air National Guard base a Superfund site, after finding the source of PFOS contamination was the historic use of firefighting foam at the base.
In August the city filed a federal lawsuit against a number of parties, including the Air Force, to stop PFOS contamination of the city’s water supply.
And the Department of Defense is well aware of the city’s action as is the state of New York,” says Ciaravino.
“New York continues to demand that the DoD step up and commit to concrete actions to address PFOS contamination from the Stewart Air National Guard Base.” Invites weren’t the only source of contention.
“That’s not what we need to hear now.
We need to hear, on this date we’re going to take action.” Meantime, McMahon says his department is working through CERCLA to address PFOS contamination.
“And part of that is remediation and part of it certainly is financial compensation for the damage that they did.” Skoufis says he also found out about the meeting just a few days earlier and understands the frustration of short notice and a meeting held during the day, when many residents are unable to attend.
She says the day was a breakthrough in terms of meeting face-to-face with the assistant secretaries, but hopes action is not years into the future.
Greene presented petitions to McMahon during the public forum, ones she has held onto since June.

GREENLAND — New water filtration systems have been installed at Breakfast Hill Golf Club and a home next to the Coakley Landfill after the suspected carcinogen 1,4-dioxane was found to be above new state standards.
Coakley Project Coordinator Peter Britz, who also works as the city of Portsmouth’s environmental planner, said Friday they expect the carbon filters should provide an adequate remedy.
Water samples taken at the golf club Oct. 15 tested at .61 parts per billion.
At the 368 Breakfast Hill Road home, the water tested at .38 parts per billion.
Both properties were provided with bottled water until the carbon filters could be installed, even though the owners had invested in water filtration systems at their own expense.
Britz explained that water filtration systems are very specific as to what is to be removed and the systems installed did not use carbon filtration.
Coakley Landfill Group was required to provide the filters.
It includes the municipalities of Portsmouth, Newington, North Hampton, solid waste generators and solid waste transporters named potentially responsible parties in consent decrees which mandate cleanup of the landfill.
The privately owned landfill accepted municipal and industrial wastes from the Portsmouth area between 1972 and 1982.
Incinerator residue was also accepted for a refuse-to-energy project between 1982 and 1985, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

MOUNT OLIVE TWP.
– Longstanding effects of pollution caused by the Combe Fill North Superfund landfill in Budd Lake have come to an end with completion of a water line that is bringing water to homes and businesses from a public water tank.
The homes and businesses had to stop using well-water in March 2016 after the water was found to have been contaminated from the Superfund site.
The grant pays for installation of the new line, new service lines to homes and the costs of sealing existing wells.
"I’m happy that it’s finally done but it’s unfortunate it took so long," said Mayor Rob Greenbaum.
The 1,4-dioxane was discovered in monitoring wells at the dump at a level of 26 parts per billion.
The findings triggered the tests at the properties outside of the dump’s perimeter.
Unacceptable levels of 1, 4-dioxane, a potentially cancer causing chemical, were found in one well in November 2014, marking the first time contaminants were discovered to have migrated off site to a drinking well since the polluted landfill was closed under the federal Superfund program in 1986.
In 1979, groundwater beneath the site was found to be contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as were private residential wells near the site.
The landfill was not properly closed when its owner, Combe Fill Corp., went bankrupt in 1981.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered two aerospace companies to complete more than $21 million in cleanup work at a Superfund site near Hollywood Burbank Airport, the agency announced Wednesday.
Following two intense years of negotiation, Lockheed Martin Corp. and Honeywell International Inc. have agreed to expand groundwater treatment and do more groundwater contamination studies at the San Fernando Valley Area 1 Superfund site – a 20-square-mile area of contaminated groundwater located mostly in North Hollywood and Burbank, federal officials said.
RELATED STORY: North Hollywood Superfund site gets $1 million groundwater cleanup settlement Since 1989, roughly $250 million has been spent in the building and operating of Superfund remedies by a number of responsible parties, said Caleb Shaffer, the EPA’s section chief for Superfund Region 9.
“The bunching of these three orders really represent a significant upgrade and expansion in terms of the amount of contamination that would be captured.
Lockheed and Honeywell make up two of the larger parties that the EPA has worked with that are responsible for contamination at the site.
Honeywell must build four wells to extract contaminated groundwater on the western end of the North Hollywood site and build a treatment system for harmful volatile organic compounds to prevent further groundwater contamination, according to the EPA.
In addition, Lockheed Martin Corp. must design, build and operate wells to extract contaminated groundwater for the eastern portion of the North Hollywood site, according to the EPA.
Federal officials say the system, which will cost about $10 million and will be completed around 2020, will prevent the further spread of groundwater contamination.
LADWP has seven well fields near or within the San Fernando Valley Area 1 Superfund site.
Over the last decade, groundwater from the agency’s well fields has contributed to about 12 percent of the city’s water supply, according to the EPA.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has officially removed two Vancouver water stations from a federal list of hazardous waste sites in need of cleanup.
4 Superfund sites were deleted from the National Priorities List after it was determined that no further purification work was necessary.
Although the city’s drinking water meets all federal standards, the city of Vancouver will leave the cleanup equipment in place to continue to reap their benefits.
After the discovery, the city immediately modified pumping rates to protect public health, then, in 1992 and 1993, added several air-stripping towers to remove the chemical from the drinking water supply.
Tetrachloroethylene is a synthetic chemical widely used as a metal degreaser and dry cleaning agent, and is also believed to increase the risks of cancer, harm the nervous and reproductive systems as well damage the liver and kidneys.
In 1992, the EPA set a maximum contaminant level for the chemical, a legal drinking water standard, at 5 parts per billion.
The two sites were then added to the National Priorities List in 1992 and 1994 and the city continued to clean up and monitor the contamination.
The air-stripping treatment towers removed the PCE from the drinking water while also removing it from the untreated groundwater.
“We continue to treat it to what they’d call non-detectable standards in the drinking water, and the untreated groundwater is below the (drinking water maximum contamination level) of 5 parts per billion,” said Tyler Clary, water engineering program manager for the city of Vancouver Public Works.
The city initiated talks with the EPA to have the two sites removed from the National Priorities List.

James M. O’Neill/Northjersey.com The movement of a toxic chemical plume under the streets of central Hockessin is the likely cause of spiking concentrations of the pollutant PCE at wells that supply drinking water to the area, according to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
"The state did not have the financial resources to move forward with investigating it.” Last week, federal regulators responded, announcing that the EPA has proposed adding the central Hockessin area to its National Priorities List – a designation that would free up federal Superfund dollars to pay for further investigation and cleanup of the underground aquifer.
Those who use a private well within a half-mile of the contaminant plume under the core of Hockessin, and do not have a water treatment system, should contact DNREC’s Hockessin Groundwater Site Project Manager Robert Asreen at Robert.Asreen@state.de.us.
Regulators initially considered nine companies as potential sources of the contamination – four gas stations, four dry cleaners, and an auto mechanic’s garage.
"Right now we have not identified any other sources, but that’s part of the investigation," he said.
"At this time all we know is that there are two sources.
The state of Delaware’s maximum allowable contaminant level for PCE in drinking water is one part per billion.
"It could be that the last part of the contamination finally got to the wells," he said.
Though water from one well recently tested 1.1 parts per billion, DiNunzio said.
Tests in 2001 after the chemical first was found in Hockessin showed PCE levels surpassed federal limits at two wells.

EPA completed deletion activities at seven sites from Superfund NPL list in 2017, including the Shpack Landfill Superfund site in Massachusetts BOSTON – Due to the hard work of staff to implement Administrator Pruitt’s initiatives to make strides in cleaning up the nation’s most contaminated toxic land sites, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing significant improvement in 2017 – through the deletion of all or parts of seven Superfund sites from the National Priorities List (NPL).
But in 2017, under the leadership of Administrator Pruitt, EPA has deleted three entire sites and portions of four others.
These deletions come on the heels of Administrator Pruitt’s list of 21 sites that have been targeted for immediate and intense attention – a direct response to the Superfund Task Force Recommendations issued this summer.
is one of the Superfund sites that has been deleted.
The Shpack Landfill operated as a private landfill from 1946 to 1965.
It is not known exactly when these radioactive materials were deposited, but an NRC investigation determined that the former M&C Nuclear, Inc., of Attleboro (which merged with Texas Instruments, Inc., in 1959) had used the landfill for the disposal of trash and other materials, including zirconium ashes, associated with nuclear fuel operations at the facility from 1957 to 1965.
Cleanup of the site was implemented in two parts, first with the USACE completing the FUSRAP remedial action to address the radiological contamination in 2011, followed by the CERCLA or Superfund remedial action to address non-radiological contamination.
The Superfund cleanup was completed in 2013.
Following standard procedure for completed cleanup work under Superfund, EPA will continue to conduct reviews of the Site every five years, starting in 2018, to ensure that human health and the environment remain protected.
EPA may initiate further action to ensure continued protectiveness at a deleted site if new information becomes available that indicates it is appropriate.

An area of contaminated groundwater beneath a housing development in Evansville has been partially removed from the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List, about 30 years after it was designated a superfund site, the agency announced Tuesday.
Seven other superfund sites from across the country were also deleted, or partially removed, from the list.
The chemical compounds soaked into the soil and polluted part of the relatively shallow aquifer beneath the subdivision and moved gradually in the direction of the North Platte, Schmidt said.
The water pollution from the gas plant has been removed from the superfund list.
“That does not mean we are simply walking away,” Schmidt said of the deleted parcel of the Mystery Bridge site.
“We are still going to go back every five years, look at it and make sure everything is okay.” The agency is currently considering whether the second source of pollution, the truck wash, can be removed from the list as well, he said.
The EPA has been addressing the pollution at Mystery Bridge since the mid-’80s, after residents complained of poor air and water quality.
State, local and federal investigation led to the discovery of contaminants and a warning that locals should not drink, wash or cook with their water due to the hazard of the chemical contamination One resident’s water was found to have 160 parts per billion of benzene, according to Star-Tribune reporting in 1986.
The EPA assisted in connecting the area to the city water system and improving the water treatment facilities.
The nearby oil field services truck wash was owned by Dow Chemical Company and Dowell-Schlumberger.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has deleted a parcel of land at the Mystery Bridge/U.S.
This parcel owned by Kinder Morgan, Inc., was removed from the priorities list after the completion of soil and groundwater cleanup actions, according to the news release.
In 1990, the EPA added the Mystery Bridge site to the national priorities list after the discovery of extensive soil and groundwater contamination along U.S. Highway 20 east of Evansville.
The national priorities listing came four years after Brookhurst residents complained of poor air and water quality in the area.
The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, the Natrona County Health Department, and the EPA’s Office of Drinking Water began investigating the site, according to the EPA’s Record of Decision about the site.
After receiving no adverse site-specific comments, the parcel was deleted from the national priorities list on Aug. 29, according to the news release.
The deletion of a site or portion of a site from the priorities list does not preclude the EPA from taking future actions at the site.
The next review report is due September 2019.
The EPA Mystery Bridge site website contains further information about the site and provides documents supporting the partial deletion.
To search for more information about these and other sites, visit the national priorities list website.