Seven years after it was discovered that the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians had been contaminated with toxic chemical waste from PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the federal government will enforce the first-ever regulations for public drinking water contaminated with PFAS.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan announced the new rules at a press conference Wednesday at the Public Works Commission’s P.O. Hoffer Water Treatment Facility in Fayetteville.
Regan also said $1 billion from the Biden-Harris administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will be allocated for states and territories to conduct initial testing and treatment at public water systems and homes served by privately owned wells.
“With today's actions, we're one huge step closer to finally shutting off the tap on forever chemicals,” Regan said. “And I promise that everything that this agency does to implement the standard will be done putting people first.”
The regulations will limit levels of six types of PFAS, including GenX, in water systems’ supply and protect 100 million people from PFAS exposure once implemented, Regan said. He estimated that 6% of public drinking water systems in the U.S. will need to adapt to meet the new standards. Water systems must comply with the new rules by 2029.
The N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality said in a press release Wednesday that more than 300 water systems in the state have PFAS levels that will exceed the new standards. This includes 42 municipal water systems serving nearly 3 million residents combined.
The announcement comes a little over a year after the EPA proposed implementing standards to regulate six types of PFAS. The new standards announced Wednesday are part of the EPA’s 2021-2024 roadmap, a comprehensive strategy for addressing widespread PFAS contamination in the U.S., and complements President Joe Biden’s government-wide action plan to combat PFAS pollution.
The press conference was held in front of the plant’s water treatment barrels and fenced reservoir. Under a large white tent, clean water advocates, local and state elected officials — including Gov. Roy Cooper, Attorney General Josh Stein and Mayor Mitch Colvin — members of the Public Works Commission and interested community members gathered to hear the announcement and accompanying speeches.
A sense of hope and accomplishment, often missing from conversations regarding PFAS, pervaded the speakers’ words and among the crowd, which erupted in frequent rounds of applause. Environmental advocates Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, and Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said the new regulations were years in the making.
“If an organization can be considered to have a life's work, PFAS is surely it for my organization, Environmental Working Group,” Cook said, apologizing as he fought back tears. “This is the best PFAS day I've had in a quarter century.”
PFAS are a class of toxic and pervasive chemicals that are linked to a myriad of harmful health effects. Previously, the EPA has only offered advisory guidelines — not enforceable standards — to public water systems on PFAS contamination levels in tap water.
“Today, I am overwhelmed with gratitude, and I am so deeply honored to be in this moment, knowing that the next time I hear the words ‘meets or exceeds federal and state drinking water standards,’ that those words will actually mean something,” Donovan said.
Cooper said North Carolina had been working on addressing PFAS since the news about Cape Fear River’s contamination broke in 2017 during his first term, when he also appointed Regan to his former position as secretary of the NCDEQ. The governor expressed optimism about North Carolina having a future of clean water.
“These new standards will help give people the confidence they deserve when they turn on the tap, that their water is safe and clean,” the governor said. “And here in North Carolina, we've already been preparing for this day.”
Cooper said Regan’s leadership of the EPA — which he recommended to Biden — and his experience in North Carolina has been instrumental in making the new regulations come to fruition.
“North Carolina has led the way across the country in fighting this challenge, but we knew we needed help,” Cooper said. “How can you adequately prevent the threat if you don't have a measurable standard that can be enforced?”
According to the rules, after testing their supplies, water systems must comply with the following PFAS limits:
Water systems will have three years to complete their initial monitoring for PFAS, and they must inform the public of the level of PFAS measured in their drinking water. When PFAS has been detected, the systems will have five years to comply with the new PFAS contamination thresholds and implement solutions.
Regan said that, while the EPA is starting with six PFAS, the agency plans to roll out new limits for other PFAS chemicals — of which there are thousands — in the future.
“This is the first of six, and we're going to continue until we get to all of them,” Regan said.
Funding
During his remarks, Cooper acknowledged there will be challenges associated with the cost of the testing and compliance for water systems, especially in smaller communities: “How will our communities be able to afford the changes that are going to be required in their water system, the filtration?”
Regan provided some answers to these questions. The EPA administrator said the $1 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is part of the $9 billion that the Biden administration has earmarked to assist communities with drinking water affected by PFAS and other emerging contaminants.
Regan said the EPA has a “prioritized list” of communities whose water systems will get funding to meet the regulations.
“It's going to be based on need,” Regan said. “And all of the money that is coming from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act prioritizes communities that have been disproportionately impacted first. So those who have never had a seat at the table finally have a seat at the table with this administration.”
Regan said that “taxpayers should not have to pick up the tab solely” for the PFAS filtration systems, and “we should be stopping at the source.” The EPA will also be offering technical assistance for water systems to meet the new standards.
“You're going to hear people talk about cost, and it can't be done, and we shouldn't do this,” Regan said. “Let me just tell you: It can be done. It can be achieved using a range of technologies and approaches that many water systems are using today.”
Locally, the PWC has already tested a handful of water filtration systems to determine which filtering method will be the most effective to comply with the new regulations, said Carolyn Justice-Hinson, the commission’s communications officer. Justice-Hinson said the utility determined a granular activated carbon system would work best.
“We're really ahead of a lot of utilities, because we've been monitoring, we've been advocating, we've been planning — so we're ready,” Justice-Hinson told CityView. “We've all just kind of been waiting for the standard so that we could move forward. Because until you know what the standard is, you can't finish your plan. You’ve got to know what your goal is.”
The PWC — and its customers in and around Fayetteville — face an estimated $92 million cost to design and build filtering equipment to extract “forever chemicals” out of its drinking water supply. Justice-Hinson said she didn’t know if the PWC would be getting funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s initial $1 billion for PFAS.
“We hope so,” Justice-Hinson said. “And we will obviously be advocating for that.”
Regan commended PWC’s efforts to address PFAS contamination.
“This water treatment facility right here has been on the frontlines finding ways to reduce PFAS exposure,” Regan said. “And cities like Fayetteville are showing that together we can get the job done.”
To learn more about the new rules and funding options, visit the EPA’s website.
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
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