New Analysis: EPA Is Ignoring A Lot Of Toxics in US Drinking Water

The law and regulations make it hard for the U.S. EPA to regulate new chemicals in drinking water. A lot of testing is required to show the chemical is harmful and found widely in water. New analysis of existing data shows a family of chemicals that includes perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, may be doing much more harm than EPA admits.

"It takes a lot to convince the US Environmental Protection Agency to limit how much of a toxin can legally show up in America’s drinking water. The threshold for determining probable human harm is very high, and even if harm is detected, the toxin has to show up in enough public water sources with enough frequency, and at levels sufficiently high, before the EPA considers it significant enough to regulate. And even after all the exhaustive studies are done, the decision ultimately comes down to “the sole judgment of the Administrator,” the head of the agency, who may or may not be swayed by the data.

Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA is responsible for determining when a chemical needs to be regulated in the US water supply, but it hasn’t added a new toxin to its list since 1996. (Even the Government Office of Accountability thinks that’s a sign of a broken system.) In the past two decades, tens of thousands of new chemicals have come onto the market, and plenty of others that pre-date 1996 have been discovered to harm human health.

For example, newly released lab results show perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA (an ingredient in Teflon, the chemical used to make non-stick cookware) is far more prevalent in American drinking water than previously thought. Exposure to PFOA has been linked to a range of health risks including cancer, immune system issues, and developmental problems in fetuses."

Zoë Schlanger reports for Quartz November 7, 2017.