Rulemaking Aims to Clean Up Our Drinking Water
Mary-Anna Holden is a former New Jersey BPU Commissioner and Butch Howard is a former South Carolina PSC Commissioner.
If there is one common plea among regulators, utilities, their customers and their investors, it is for certainty. Two years ago, the federal maximum contaminant level (MCL) for PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid) and PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) was set at four parts per trillion after much dread over the initially proposed four parts per quadrillion, a detection level so miniscule that no lab equipment could reliably identify it. To many, this decision appeared hasty and arbitrary with all public water systems scrambling for compliance at the same time.
Today’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a notice of proposed rulemaking that together, with the Department of Health and Human Services, they say will strengthen PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) destruction and advance a comprehensive lifecycle-based strategy highlighting innovative PFAS treatment and destruction technologies.
It would allot an added one billion dollars in grants to states under the “Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities Grant.” Also, it would rescind its previous regulatory determination, under the Safe Drinking Water Act, for the following four PFAS (not to be confused with PFOS and PFOA) substances:
Perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS — used as a paint additive, antireflective coating, and photoresist; and paper and cardboard food packaging to resist grease);