EPA

epa’s-pfas-rules:-we’d-prefer-zero,-but-we’ll-accept-4-parts-per-trillion

EPA’s PFAS rules: We’d prefer zero, but we’ll accept 4 parts per trillion

clean water act, EPA, Forever chemicals, PFAS, Policy, regulation, Science / /

Approaching zero —

For two chemicals, any presence in water supplies is too much.

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A young person drinks from a public water fountain.

Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it has finalized rules for handling water supplies that are contaminated by a large family of chemicals collectively termed PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances). Commonly called “forever chemicals,” these contaminants have been linked to a huge range of health issues, including cancers, heart disease, immune dysfunction, and developmental disorders.

The final rules keep one striking aspect of the initial proposal intact: a goal of completely eliminating exposure to two members of the PFAS family. The new rules require all drinking water suppliers to monitor for the chemicals’ presence, and the EPA estimates that as many as 10 percent of them may need to take action to remove them. While that will be costly, the health benefits are expected to exceed those costs.

Going low

PFAS are a collection of hydrocarbons where some of the hydrogen atoms have been swapped out for fluorine. This swap retains the water-repellant behavior of hydrocarbons while making the molecules highly resistant to breaking down through natural processes—hence the forever chemicals moniker. They’re widely used in water-resistant clothing and non-stick cooking equipment and have found uses in firefighting foam. Their widespread use and disposal has allowed them to get into water supplies in many locations.

They’ve also been linked to an enormous range of health issues. The EPA expects that its new rules will have the following effects: fewer cancers, lower incidence of heart attacks and strokes, reduced birth complications, and a drop in other developmental, cardiovascular, liver, immune, endocrine, metabolic, reproductive, musculoskeletal, and carcinogenic effects. These are not chemicals you want to be drinking.

The striking thing was how far the EPA was willing to go to get them out of drinking water. For two chemicals, Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), the Agency’s ideal contamination level is zero. Meaning no exposure to these chemicals whatsoever. Since current testing equipment is limited to a sensitivity of four parts per trillion, the new rules settle for using that as the standard. Other family members see limits of 10 parts per trillion, and an additional limit sets a cap on how much total exposure is acceptable when a mixture of PFAS is present.

Overall, the EPA estimates that there are roughly 66,000 drinking water suppliers that will be subject to these new rules. They’ll be given three years to get monitoring and testing programs set up and provided access to funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help offset the costs. All told, over $20 billion will be made available for the testing and improvements to equipment needed for compliance.

The Agency expects that somewhere between 4,000 and 6,500 of those systems will require some form of decontamination. While those represent a relatively small fraction of the total drinking water suppliers, it’s estimated that nearly a third of the US’ population will see its exposure to PFAS drop. Several technologies, including reverse osmosis and exposure to activated carbon, are capable of pulling PFAS from water, and the EPA is leaving it up to each supplier to choose a preferred method.

Cost/benefit

All of that monitoring and decontamination will not come cheap. The EPA estimates that the annual costs will be in the neighborhood of $150 billion, which will likely be passed on to consumers via their water suppliers. Those same consumers, however, are expected to see health benefits that outweigh these costs. EPA estimates place the impact of just three of the health improvements (cancer, cardiovascular, and birth complications) at $150 billion annually. Adding all the benefits of the rest of the health improvements should greatly exceed the costs.

The problem, of course, is that people will immediately recognize the increased cost of their water bills, while the savings of medical problems that don’t happen are much more abstract.

Overall, the final plan is largely unchanged from the EPA’s original proposal. The biggest differences are that the Agency is giving water suppliers more time to comply, somewhat more specific exposure allowances, and the ability of suppliers with minimal contamination to go longer in between submitting test results.

“People will live longer, healthier lives because of this action, and the benefits justify the costs,” the agency concluded in announcing the new rules.

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EPA seeks to cut “Cancer Alley” pollutants

carcinogens, clean air act, EPA, Policy, pollution, Science, Sustainability, Toxicology / /

Out of the air —

Chemical plants will have to monitor how much is escaping and stop leaks.

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Image of a large industrial facility on the side of a river.

Enlarge / An oil refinery in Louisiana. Facilities such as this have led to a proliferation of petrochemical plants in the area.

On Tuesday, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced new rules that are intended to cut emissions of two chemicals that have been linked to elevated incidence of cancer: ethylene oxide and chloroprene. While production and use of these chemicals takes place in a variety of locations, they’re particularly associated with an area of petrochemical production in Louisiana that has become known as “Cancer Alley.”

The new regulations would require chemical manufacturers to monitor the emissions at their facilities and take steps to repair any problems that result in elevated emissions. Despite extensive evidence linking these chemicals to elevated risk of cancer, industry groups are signaling their opposition to these regulations, and the EPA has seen two previous attempts at regulation set aside by courts.

Dangerous stuff

The two chemicals at issue are primarily used as intermediates in the manufacture of common products. Chloroprene, for example, is used for the production of neoprene, a synthetic rubber-like substance that’s probably familiar from products like insulated sleeves and wetsuits. It’s a four-carbon chain with two double-bonds that allow for polymerization and an attached chlorine that alters its chemical properties.

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), chloroprene “is a mutagen and carcinogen in animals and is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.” Given that cancers are driven by DNA damage, any mutagen would be “reasonably anticipated” to drive the development of cancer. Beyond that, it appears to be pretty nasty stuff, with the NCI noting that “exposure to this substance causes damage to the skin, lungs, CNS, kidneys, liver and depression of the immune system.”

The NCI’s take on Ethylene Oxide is even more definitive, with the Institute placing it on its list of cancer-causing substances. The chemical is very simple, with two carbons that are linked to each other directly, and also linked via an oxygen atom, which makes the molecule look a bit like a triangle. This configuration allows the molecule to participate in a broad range of reactions that break one of the oxygen bonds, making it useful in the production of a huge range of chemicals. Its reactivity also makes it useful for sterilizing items such as medical equipment.

Its sterilization function works through causing damage to DNA, which again makes it prone to causing cancers.

In addition to these two chemicals, the EPA’s new regulations will target a number of additional airborne pollutants, including benzene, 1,3-butadiene, ethylene dichloride, and vinyl chloride, all of which have similar entries at the NCI.

Despite the extensive record linking these chemicals to cancer, The New York Times quotes the US Chamber of Commerce, a pro-industry group, as saying that “EPA should not move forward with this rule-making based on the current record because there remains significant scientific uncertainty.”

A history of exposure

The petrochemical industry is the main source of these chemicals, so their release is associated with areas where the oil and gas industry has a major presence; the EPA notes that the regulations will target sources in Delaware, New Jersey, and the Ohio River Valley. But the primary focus will be on chemical plants in Texas and Louisiana. These include the area that has picked up the moniker Cancer Alley due to a high incidence of the disease in a stretch along the Mississippi River with a large concentration of chemical plants.

As is the case with many examples of chemical pollution, the residents of Cancer Alley are largely poor and belong to minority groups. As a result, the EPA had initially attempted to regulate the emissions under a civil rights provision of the Clean Air Act, but that has been bogged down due to lawsuits.

The new regulations simply set limits on permissible levels of release at what’s termed the “fencelines” of the facilities where these chemicals are made, used, or handled. If levels exceed an annual limit, the owners and operators “must find the source of the pollution and make repairs.” This gets rid of previous exemptions for equipment startup, shutdown, and malfunctions; those exemptions had been held to violate the Clean Air Act in a separate lawsuit.

The EPA estimates that the sites subject to regulation will see their collective emissions of these chemicals drop by nearly 80 percent, which works out to be 54 tons of ethylene oxide, 14 tons of chloroprene, and over 6,000 tons of the other pollutants. That in turn will reduce the cancer risk from these toxins by 96 percent among those subjected to elevated exposures. Collectively, the chemicals subject to these regulations also contribute to smog, so these reductions will have an additional health impact by reducing its levels as well.

While the EPA says that “these emission reductions will yield significant reductions in lifetime cancer risk attributable to these air pollutants,” it was unable to come up with an estimate of the financial benefits that will result from that reduction. By contrast, it estimates that the cost of compliance will end up being approximately $150 million annually. “Most of the facilities covered by the final rule are owned by large corporations,” the EPA notes. “The cost of implementing the final rule is less than one percent of their annual national sales.”

This sort of cost-benefit analysis is a required step during the formulation of Clean Air Act regulations, so it’s worth taking a step back and considering what’s at stake here: the EPA is basically saying that companies that work with significant amounts of carcinogens need to take stronger steps to make sure that they don’t use the air people breathe as a dumping ground for them.

Unsurprisingly, The New York Times quotes a neoprene manufacturer that the EPA is currently suing over its chloroprene emissions as claiming the new regulations are “draconian.”

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Tesla’s week gets worse: Fines, safety investigation, and massive recall

Cars, EPA, NHTSA recall, Tesla, Tesla recall / /

toxic waste, seriously? —

There have been 2,388 complaints about steering failure in the Model 3 and Model Y.

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A Tesla Model Y steering wheel and dashboard

Enlarge / More than 2,000 Tesla model-year 2023 Model Y and Model 3s have suffered steering failure, according to a new NHTSA safety defect investigation.

Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images

It’s been a rough week for Tesla. On Tuesday, a court in Delaware voided a massive $55.8 billion pay package for CEO Elon Musk. Then, news emerged that Tesla was being sued by 25 different counties in California for years of dumping toxic waste. That was followed by a recall affecting 2.2 million Teslas. Now, Ars has learned that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation is investigating the company after 2,388 complaints of steering failure affecting the model-year 2023 Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover.

Paint, brake fluid, used batteries, antifreeze, diesel

Tesla has repeatedly run afoul of laws designed to protect the environment from industrial waste. In 2019, author Edward Niedermeyer cataloged the troubles the company ran into with air pollution from its paint shop in Fremont, California, some of which occurred when the automaker took to painting its cars in a temporary tent-like marquee.

In 2022, the US Environmental Protection Agency fined Tesla $275,000 for violating the Clean Air Act, which followed a $31,000 penalty Tesla paid to the EPA in 2019. But EPA data shows that Tesla continued to violate the Clean Air Act in 2023.

And on Wednesday, Reuters reported that 25 Californian counties sued Tesla for violating the state’s hazardous waste laws and unfair business laws by improperly labeling hazardous waste before sending it to landfills that were not able to deal with the material.

The suit alleged that violations occurred at more than 100 facilities, including the factory in Fremont, and that Tesla disposed of hazardous materials including “but not limited to: lubricating oils, brake fluids, lead acid batteries, aerosols, antifreeze, cleaning fluids, propane, paint, acetone, liquified petroleum gas, adhesives and diesel fuel.”

Despite potentially large penalties for these industrial waste violations, which could have resulted in tens of thousands of dollars of fines for each day the automaker was not compliant, the counties and Tesla swiftly settled the suit on Thursday. Tesla, which had annual revenues of $96.8 billion in 2023, will pay just $1.3 million in civil penalties and an additional $200,000 in costs. The company is supposed to properly train its employees and hire a third party to conduct annual waste audits at 10 percent of its facilities, according to the Office of the District Attorney in San Francisco.

“While electric vehicles may benefit the environment, the manufacturing and servicing of these vehicles still generates many harmful waste streams,” said District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. “Today’s settlement against Tesla, Inc. serves to provide a cleaner environment for citizens throughout the state by preventing the contamination of our precious natural resources when hazardous waste is mismanaged and unlawfully disposed. We are proud to work with our district attorney partners to enforce California’s environmental laws to ensure these hazardous wastes are handled properly.”

An easy recall, a not-so-easy defect investigation

Tesla’s latest recall is a big one, affecting 2,193,869 vehicles—nearly every Tesla sold in the US, including the Model S (model years 2012–2023), the Model X (model years 2016–2024), the Model 3 (model years 2014–2023), the Model Y (model years 2019–2024) and the Cybertruck.

According to the official Part 573 Safety Notice, the issue is due to the cars’ displays, which use a font for the brake, park, and antilock brake warning indicators that is smaller than is legally required under the federal motor vehicle safety standards. NHTSA says it noticed the problem as part of a routine compliance audit on a Model Y in early January. After the agency informed the automaker, Tesla looked into the issue itself, and on January 24, it decided to issue a safety recall. Fortunately for the automaker, it can fix this problem with a software update.

A software patch is unlikely to help its other safety defect problem, however. Yesterday, NHTSA’s ODI upgraded a preliminary evaluation (begun in July 2023) to a full investigation of the steering components fitted to model-year 2023 Models 3 and Y.

NHTSA’s ODI says the problem affects up to 334,569 vehicles, which could suffer a loss of steering control. There have been 124 complaints of steering failure to NHTSA, and the agency says Tesla identified a further 2,264 customer complaints related to the problem. So far, at least one Tesla has crashed as a result of being unable to complete a right turn in an intersection.

A third of the complaints were reported to have happened at speeds below 5 mph, with the majority occurring between 5 and 35 mph and about 10 percent occurring above 35 mph (at least one complaint alleges the problem occurred at 75 mph). “A majority of allegations reported seeing a warning message, ‘Steering assist reduced,’ either before, during, or after the loss of steering control. A portion of drivers described their steering begin to feel ‘notchy’ or ‘clicky’ either prior to or just after the incident,” NHTSA’s investigation said.

NHTSA says there have been “multiple allegations of drivers blocking intersections and/or roadways,” and that more than 50 Teslas had to be towed as a result of the problem. The problem appears to be related to two of the four steering rack part numbers that Tesla used for these model-year 2023 EVs. They were installed in 2,187 of the vehicles, according to the complaints.

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Getting “forever chemicals” out of drinking water is expensive

drinking water, EPA, PFAS, Science, syndication / /

safe to drink —

Can water utilities meet the EPA’s new standard for PFAS?

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aerial view of water treatment plant

Situated in a former sand and gravel pit just a few hundred feet from the Kennebec River in central Maine, the Riverside Station pumps half a million gallons of fresh groundwater every day. The well station processes water from two of five wells on either side of the river operated by the Greater Augusta Utility District, or GAUD, which supplies drinking water to nearly 6,000 local households. Most of them reside in Maine’s state capital, Augusta, just a few miles to the south. Ordinarily, GAUD prides itself on the quality of its water supply. “You could drink it out of the ground and be perfectly safe,” said Brian Tarbuck, GAUD’s general manager.

But in March 2021, environmental sampling of Riverside well water revealed trace levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or “forever chemicals,” as they’re better known. The levels at Riverside didn’t exceed Maine’s drinking water standard of 20 parts per trillion (ppt), which was a relief, Tarbuck said. Still, he and his colleagues at the utility were wary. PFAS have been linked to a variety of health problems, and Maine lawmakers at the time were debating an even stricter limit for the chemicals. Tarbuck knew a lower standard was coming someday. The only question was when.

As it turns out, a tougher standard is expected early this year. That’s when the US Environmental Protection Agency is set to finalize an enforceable cap on PFAS in drinking water that will require GAUD and thousands of other utilities around the country to update their treatment methods. The standard, which in regulatory terms is called a maximum contaminant level, or MCL, limits permissible amounts of the two most studied and ubiquitous PFAS compounds—PFOA and PFOS—to just 4 ppt in drinking water each. Roughly equivalent to a single drop in five Olympic-size swimming pools, this is the lowest concentration that current analytical instruments can reliably detect “within specific limits of precision and accuracy during routine laboratory operating conditions,” according to the EPA. Four other PFAS—PFHxS, PFNA, PFBS, and HFPO-DA (otherwise known as GenX Chemicals)—will be regulated by combining their acceptable levels into a single value. Utilities will have three to five years to bring their systems into compliance.

Agency officials estimate that between 3,400 and 6,300 water systems will be affected by the regulation, which is the EPA’s first ever PFAS standard and the first MCL set by the agency for any chemical in drinking water in over 25 years. PFOA and PFOS account for the majority of anticipated exceedances.

GAUD is now gearing up to spend $3 to 5 million on PFAS removal technology, according to Tarbuck, much of which will be passed on to its customers in the form of higher water bills. Nationally, the price tag of meeting the standard could top $37 billion in upfront costs, in addition to $650 million in annual operating expenses, according to the American Water Works Association, or AWWA, a nonprofit lobbying group representing water utilities. That’s far higher than the EPA’s cost estimate of $777 million to $1.2 billion and a significant burden for an industry already contending with other costly priorities, such as boosting cybersecurity and “replacing all those antiquated, leaking big water pipes that transport the water from the treatment plant to the service line” that connects to homes, said Marc Edwards, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech. Chris Moody, the AWWA’s regulatory technical manager, said most of the money will be spent in the next several years, as utilities race to install PFAS removal systems and other infrastructure needed to meet compliance deadlines.

In proposing the limits, EPA officials said that they had leveraged the latest science to protect the public from PFAS pollution. Environmental groups welcomed the move as long overdue. But the standard has drawn widespread criticism from the water utility industry and some scientists who say that in many places, small drops in PFAS water levels will matter little for exposure or health. “There are other strategies that get us to safer, public health protective approaches to PFAS that don’t involve the really strict standard that EPA is putting forward,” said Ned Calonge, an associate dean for public health practice at the Colorado School of Public Health and chair of a 2022 National Academies of Sciences report on PFAS exposure, testing, and clinical follow-up.

EPA officials estimate that between 3,400 and 6,300 water systems will be affected by the regulation, which is the agency’s first-ever PFAS standard

A key issue, critics say, is that the standard ensnares too many utilities with very small PFAS exceedances. Roughly 98 percent of drinking water utilities in the country, including GAUD, have maximum PFOA and PFOS levels below 10 ppt, according to the AWWA. When the levels are already so low, further reductions of a few parts per trillion “is not going to have much effect on total exposure intake,” wrote Ian Cousins, an environmental chemist at Stockholm University and one of the world’s leading researchers on PFAS exposure, in an email to Undark.

Drinking water is only one among many different pathways by which people can be exposed to PFAS. The chemicals are also in agricultural produce, fish, meat, outdoor soil, household dust, nonstick cookware, cosmetics, fast-food wrappers, stain- and water-resistant fabrics, and other products. Just how much these sources each contribute to PFAS exposure is a subject of ongoing research. But the EPA estimates that Americans get 80 percent of their PFAS intake from sources other than drinking water, and according to Cousins, dietary contributions likely account for most human exposure. The US Food and Drug Administration has required the phase out of some PFAS in food packaging. But “food is contaminated via bioaccumulation in agricultural and marine food chains,” Cousins said. “We cannot clean up our food in the same way that we can add a treatment process to our drinking water.”

Getting “forever chemicals” out of drinking water is expensive Read More »

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EPA expands “high priority” probe into AT&T, Verizon lead-contaminated cables

AT&T, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, lead contamination, lead exposure, Policy, telcos, telecommunications companies, verizon / /
EPA expands “high priority” probe into AT&T, Verizon lead-contaminated cables

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expanding its investigation into potential risks posed by lead-covered cables installed nationwide by major telecommunications companies, The Wall Street Journal revealed in an exclusive report Thursday.

After finding “more than 100 readings with elevated lead near cables,” the EPA sent letters to AT&T and Verizon in December, requesting a meeting later this month, the Journal revealed. On the agenda, the EPA expects the companies to share internal data on their own testing of the cables, as well as details from any “technical reports related to the companies’ testing and sampling,” the WSJ reported.

The EPA’s investigation was prompted by a WSJ report published last July, alleging that AT&T, Verizon, and other companies were aware that thousands of miles of cables could be contaminating soils throughout the US, “where Americans live, work and play,” but did nothing to intervene despite the many public health risks associated with lead exposure.

In that report, tests showed that the telecom cables were likely the source of lead contaminated soils because “the amount measured in the soil was highest directly under or next to the cables and dropped within a few feet.” WSJ also spoke to residents and former telecom employees in areas tested who had contracted illnesses commonly linked to lead exposure.

Immediately, WSJ’s report spurred lawmakers to demand a response from USTelecom—a telecommunications trade association representing companies accused—with Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) suggesting that telecom giants were seemingly committing “corporate irresponsibility of the worst kind.”

Since then, the EPA has followed up and developed “its own testing data” in West Orange, New Jersey, southwest Pennsylvania, and Louisiana—the same locations flagged by the WSJ. In all locations, the EPA found lead contamination exceeding the “current recommendation for levels of lead it believes are generally safe in soil where children play,” 400-parts-per-million, the WSJ reported. In West Orange, two testing sites found lead “at 3,300 parts per million or higher.”

According to the EPA, initial testing by a national working group led to a conclusion that none of these sites poses an immediate health risk or requires an emergency response, but that finding hasn’t stopped the probe. The EPA told the WSJ that it still needs to address unanswered questions to decide “whether further actions may be required to address risks from the lead-containing cables.”

“While some locations sampled show concentrations above screening levels for long term exposures, existing data is not sufficient to determine whether lead from the cables poses a threat, or a potential threat, to human health or the environment,” the EPA said in a Reuters report.

Companies maintain that evidence from their own testing has shown lead cables do not pose public health risks requiring remediation.

USTelecom, speaking on behalf of Verizon and other telecom companies, told the WSJ that “our industry has been engaging with the EPA and our companies look forward to meeting with the EPA to discuss agency and industry testing results. We will continue to follow the science, which has not identified that lead-sheathed telecom cables are a leading cause of lead exposure or the cause of a public health issue.”

AT&T told the WSJ that it “will continue to work collaboratively with the EPA as it undertakes its review of lead-clad telecommunications cables. We look forward to the opportunity to meet with the EPA to discuss recent testing and other evidence that contradicts the Wall Street Journal’s assertions.”

An EPA spokesperson, Nick Conger, told Bloomberg that there is no date set for the meeting yet.

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