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Maine will need to cut its maximum allowable level of certain “forever chemicals” in drinking water fivefold to meet the first national, enforceable drinking water standard announced Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is aimed at protecting communities.
The new contaminant levels in drinking water decrease the maximum allowable level of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from 20 parts per trillion to 4 parts per trillion. Maine Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson David Madore told the Bangor Daily News earlier that once they are effective, it will likely “review existing PFAS monitoring data and offer filter systems to additional households.”
The White House Office of Management and Budget completed its review of the EPA’s final rule to regulate PFAS in drinking water on March 27. That cleared the way for the OMB to set enforceable limits for the first time for up to six of the thousands of known PFAS.
Portland-based nonprofit Defend Our Health welcomed the news in a statement, saying 1 in 10 Mainers rely on a public drinking water supply that has been contaminated at levels that have not required filtration under Maine’s current standards but will under the new EPA standard, according to its analysis of Maine Department of Health and Human Services data on PFAS levels in public water systems.
Mainers who rely on private wells will need to test them and add filtration if needed. The DEP has identified 661 residential wells contaminated above Maine’s limit of 20 parts per trillion. Defend Our Health said sources close to the DEP investigation expect that the number of identified residential wells needing filtration will double under the EPA’s new standard. DEP provides free water filtration for contaminated wells identified through the department’s sludge investigation or uncontrolled site program.
The 134,035 at-risk Mainers include the residents of large municipal water supplies such as those in Waterville, Brunswick, Topsham, Augusta and Sanford, Defend Our Health said. The DHHS data also show that more than 14,000 students and staff at 60 Maine schools, day cares and colleges are drinking contaminated water that falls between the EPA’s new safe drinking water limit and Maine’s interim limits.
The disproportionately low-income residents of 10 mobile home parks in Maine will gain new protections from PFAS with the latest EPA limits, as will the residents of numerous apartments, retirement communities and assisted living facilities, Defend Our Health said.
The new standards are a huge step forward in addressing the public health consequences of the PFAS contamination crisis, said Katherine O’Brien, senior attorney at Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based nonprofit environmental law firm.
“Those contaminants are so widespread, and drinking water is a major source of exposure. But it isn’t going to solve the crisis on its own,” said O’Brien, who works in Maine.
Earthjustice said almost everyone in the U.S. has traces of PFAS in their body because the chemicals have contaminated the air, soil and water, and the chemicals have created a public health crisis because even low exposure levels have been linked to illnesses including thyroid problems and cancer.
“We’ve been urging EPA to get to work immediately after it finalizes the rule on broadening drinking water standards that would really address PFAS as a class of chemicals,” O’Brien said.
Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, most states in the country, including Maine, have been delegated primary responsibility for enforcing drinking water regulations.
The new levels are 4 parts per trillion for the more studied compounds, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS. The new levels are 10 parts per trillion for hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid, or HFPO-DA, commonly referred to as GenX; perfluorononanoic, or PFNA; and perfluorobutanesulfonic acid, or PFHxS.
The EPA also set a value of “one” for its Hazard Index, which measures mixtures containing two or more PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and perfluorobutane sulfonate, or PFBS.
“The Hazard Index is important as it accounts for the risks that people experience when they’re drinking relatively lower levels of multiple PFAS that are having additive health effects,” O’Brien said. “It’s a stronger, more protective approach than just regulating each one of those individually.”
The EPA rule requires public water systems to monitor for the six PFAS, giving them three years to complete the initial monitoring by 2027. It requires ongoing compliance monitoring. Water systems also must provide the public with information on those levels starting in 2027.
Public water systems have until 2029 to implement solutions to reduce PFAS levels if they exceed the federal standards. Starting in 2029, public water systems containing PFAS that violate one or more of the levels must take action to reduce the levels and notify the public of the violation.
