© 2024 254 North Front Street, Suite 300, Wilmington, NC 28401 | 910.343.1640
News Classical 91.3 Wilmington 92.7 Wilmington 96.7 Southport
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

EPA announces 'the first-ever national standard' for PFAS regulations on six chemicals, including GenX

EPA Administrator Michael Regan announces new regulations on PFAS in drinking water at UNCW, March 14, 2023.
Kelly Kenoyer
EPA Administrator Michael Regan announces new regulations on PFAS in drinking water at UNCW, March 14, 2023.

The regulations, which set very strict limits for cetain PFAS in drinking water, are the first of their kind and will go a long way toward protecting people from harm, according to the EPA. But meeting the regulations will fall on water utilities, and ratepayers, not companies like Chemours which do the actually polluting.

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced a major shift in the regulation in PFAS, also known as forever chemicals. The new drinking water standards will apply to six PFAS commonly found in drinking water.

In a press conference at UNCW, EPA Administrator Michael Regan called the new rules the "first-ever national standard" and key for protecting human health.

“These chemicals can accumulate in the body over time,” he said. “We know that long-term exposure to certain types of PFAS have been linked to serious illnesses, including cancer, liver damage, and high cholesterol.”

Regulations were previously left to the states resulting in piecemeal enforcement across the country. But the federal rules fall in line with existing North Carolina regulations which were announced last year.

These rules will impact public water systems. It will be several years before they become enforceable, starting in 2026 or 2027, but once they do, water utilities will need to monitor for these PFAS, notify the public if they are found, and reduce PFAS levels until they meet the safe drinking water standards. For legacy PFAS like PFOA and PFOS, that means less than 4 parts per trillion in drinking water.

The four other PFAS, including GenX, will be regulated using the EPA calls a Hazard Index, which will generate enforceable limits down the line, based on a calculation of the danger of the combined amount of those chemicals.

North Carolina announced an Action Strategy for PFAS last year, and has worked with public water systems to test for PFAS in the months since.

While these proposed regulations will fall on water utilities, NCDEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser said there is some funding available to help implement these drinking water standards: $2 billion across the country, with $61.7 million going to North Carolina.

She said that money will go “to address PFAS contamination and drinking water in our small rural and disadvantaged communities.”

It’s unlikely that money will go far enough: in southeastern North Carolina, the cost to ratepayers has risen to deal with contamination from Chemours. CFPUA has spent roughly $50 million on new carbon filters that will cost several million each year to operate and Brunswick County is spending over $100 million on reverse osmosis technology. That's more money than is available for the whole state, spent in just two counties.

Under North Carolina law, it’s difficult to offset rate increases for lower-income consumers (state statute considers water a commodity, not a public good). That means rate hikes which might be more easily absorbed by an affluent family can hit a low-income family harder.

Further, while officials at the state and local level have repeatedly said Chemours should be shouldering that cost of safe water, and have sued the company alongside utilities like CFPUA, Chemours has fought in court for years to avoid paying up — despite having admitted to polluting the Cape Fear River with PFAS for decades.

Clean Cape Fear Co-Founder Emily Donovan has been critical of Chemours and other polluters in the past, but at the press conference, she also targeted water utility associations that have sided with the chemical industry.

"These associations take ratepayers' money and instead of demanding drinking water sources be protected better, they're often actively demanding Congress and the EPA turn a blind eye to all this pollution," she said.

It’s worth noting that before the EPA rules become legally enforceable they have to go through a comment period, and could be revised. You can find more information about that process, including public hearings, here.

Kelly Kenoyer is an Oregonian transplant on the East Coast. She attended University of Oregon’s School of Journalism as an undergraduate, and later received a Master’s in Journalism from University of Missouri- Columbia. Contact her on Twitter @Kelly_Kenoyer or by email: KKenoyer@whqr.org.
Ben Schachtman is a journalist and editor with a focus on local government accountability. He began reporting for Port City Daily in the Wilmington area in 2016 and took over as managing editor there in 2018. He’s a graduate of Rutgers College and later received his MA from NYU and his PhD from SUNY-Stony Brook, both in English Literature.