FEBRUARY ROUNDUP
This month, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to issue its proposed PFAS drinking water standards. Our nation’s water systems have limited resources, funding, and operational capacity. As such, the Water & Health Advisory Council believes that a national standard must be fully substantiated by toxicity and occurrence data before water systems are required to direct more funding and resources towards PFOS/PFOA monitoring. 
 
Council member Joe Cotruvo, along with co-authors Susan Goldhaber and Andrew Cohen, recently published a peer-reviewed article “EPA’s Unprecedented Interim Drinking Water Health Advisories (HAs) for PFOA and PFOS” in the National Groundwater Association Journal. This paper discusses the interim EPA Drinking Water Health Advisories (HAs) for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) which were recently reduced to 0.004 ppt and 0.020 ppt, respectively.
 
While the EPA health advisories are not enforceable regulations, they can have severe economic consequences as some states have already begun to adopt them as operating guidance or enforceable regulations and set standards for drinking water and site remediation. The co-authors argue that the “unmeasurable and scientifically questionable EPA HAs will increase public concern about the health effects of these chemicals and will result in major expenditures in many of the 150,000 public water systems in the U.S.”
Water Advisory Insights
Council member Janet Anderson spoke with Water Online about the need for risk assessment and risk management with respect to water issues, regulations, and human health. See a clip of the conversation here.

Our nation’s water systems have limited resources, funding, and operational capacity. As such, a national standard must be fully substantiated by toxicity and occurrence data before water systems are required to direct more funding and resources towards PFOS/PFOA monitoring. We urge lawmakers to consider a science-based approach to the regulation of PFOA and PFOS.
Council members Kathryn Sorensen and Manny Teodoro, along with the Director of Navajo Nation Division of Natural Resources, Bidtah Becker, recently collaborated to comment on the monthly water bill. The three co-authors made the argument that community water systems form the foundation of public health, economic opportunity, and quality of life and bills should be paid accordingly by the communities that utilize the systems.

Council Members Chad Seidel and Manny Teodoro were recently featured in an AP News article that highlighted the challenges that small communities face related to resource allocation for water systems and subsequent access to clean drinking water. While water systems in larger cities tend to gain more attention and attract more resources, water providers serving smaller cities in the U.S. tend to violate twice as many health standards than bigger cities.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of thousands of chemicals, two of which are known to be toxic to humans. These two chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), are no longer produced in the United States. However, they have recently been a topic of public concern, especially in regard to drinking water contamination. Other PFAS chemicals are used in consumer products including semiconductors, cellphones, textiles, renewable energy, and medical devices. Visit our website to discover science-based answers to some of the most pressing PFAS questions.
Water News
Drinking water systems are preparing for the possibility that the EPA will try to codify its 2022 health advisories suggesting no amount of PFAS substances are safe, water attorneys say. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to issue its proposed PFAS drinking water standards by March 3, according to the EPA’s latest regulatory agenda. That date is exactly two years after the agency published its 2021 decision to regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
This month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced over $2.4 billion from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for states, Tribes, and territories through this year’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF). The funding will support communities in upgrading essential water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure that protects public health and treasured water bodies across the nation. Nearly half of this funding will be available as grants or principal forgiveness loans helping underserved communities across America invest in water infrastructure, while creating good-paying jobs.
California released a plan detailing how Western states reliant on the Colorado River should save more water. It came a day after the six other states in the river basin made a competing proposal. In a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, California described how states could conserve between 1 million and nearly 2 million acre feet of water through new cuts based on the elevation of Lake Mead, a key reservoir.
Winter storms have filled California’s reservoirs and built up a colossal Sierra snowpack that’s nearly twice its normal size for this time of year. But years of dry conditions have created problems far beneath Earth’s surface that aren’t as easily addressed.
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