As US EPA struggles with perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) drinking-water and cleanup standards, many states are beginning to address PFAS themselves.
North Carolina lawmakers enacted legislation to fund the monitoring and treatment of PFAS, specifically the chemical GenX. With no final regulations in the state, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and regulated entities debate on what an appropriate drinking-water standard should be. New York, Michigan, and California have sent notice letters to many industrial waste discharges and hazardous waste site responsible parties requesting that wastewater discharges be tested, and that the results of those tests be provided to the state-responsible agency. The Washington Department of Health is testing several hundred water systems in the state for more than a dozen chemicals found in some firefighting foams.
So far, Michigan has adopted a groundwater maximum contamination level of 70 ppt for PFAS, which is in line with the US EPA recommendation. New Jersey adopted a drinking-water contamination level of 14 ppt, and Vermont has adopted a level of 20 ppt. As states continue to struggle with the best way to deal with these chemicals, legislation and testing obligations for clients are evolving daily. One of the more recent summaries of state-by-state activity is available at the nscl website.
Lively debate continues regarding the toxicology and necessity for regulating the consumption of game containing PFAS chemicals, as well as soil and groundwater cleanup standards at Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) sites. Several Environmental Standards, Inc. subject-matter experts are tracking the issues and are involved in a broad variety of industry working groups and environmental coalitions centered both on the evolving science and regulatory policy of PFAS. Please call us if you have questions or need up-to-date information on our efforts in the PFAS arena.