July 13, 2021 | less than a minute read

Safe Drinking Water Act Regulation Proposed for 29 PFAS. Will Superfund Coverage be Far Behind?

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Jeff Porter

Member/ Chair, Environmental Law Practice

Get in touch

Jeff Porter

Member/ Chair, Environmental Law Practice

Inside EPA reports this morning that EPA is ready to propose the regulation of a group of 29 PFAS under the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act. It remains to be seen how long it will take EPA to implement such regulations.

We continue to better understand the ubiquitousness of these "forever chemicals" in our environment so we can only hope that EPA will have science, not hysteria, illuminate its path forward. I wonder whether identification of some number of PFAS as hazardous substances covered by the Federal Superfund law will be far behind.

In the meantime, many states have their own PFAS standards, many other states have no standards at all, and the general public is left to wonder about the real risks relating to PFAS and what might be reasonably done to mitigate those risks.

EPA’s proposed listing of a group of PFAS, based on the substances’ structural similarities, appears to respond to calls from states and others who have long urged the agency to consider regulating either blocks of the chemicals or the entire category at once, saying that approach is a more efficient means of addressing a class whose constituent substances number in the thousands.