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The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to weaken standards for cleaning up toxic chemicals used at military bases and found to have contaminated drinking water that millions of Americans consume, bowing from pressure from the Department of Defense, according to a report in theNew York Times.
The toxic chemicals, called PFAS (per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances), may pose health risks, including cancer, liver damage, decreased fertility and increased risk of asthma and thyroid disease, according to theHarvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
PFAS have been used for decades in “non-stick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain-resistant fabrics and carpets, some cosmetics, some firefighting foams, and products that resist grease, water, and oil,” according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Defense Department has used significant amounts of PFAS-related chemicals in its firefighting, and has confirmed the toxic chemicals’ release or possible release at 401 locations across the country, theTimesreports, citing aU.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
The EPA had set water contamination cleanup standards in the last year, including a suggestion that could have led to prompt removal of the toxic chemicals, but the Pentagon objected and brought concerns to the White House, reports theTimes.
The suggestion has been erased from the current proposal, according to the newspaper. Instead, the current recommendations focus on remedial actions that can take years to clean up contaminated drinking water, and some sites that would have been required to clean up contaminated water may now avoid remediation, according to the publication.
The proposed weakened standards areopen for public comment.
“It is a Band-Aid, at best, that does essentially nothing to help the hundreds — perhaps thousands — of communities, in almost every state, with contaminated tap water,” he told theTimes. “Americans need real and swift action to address this crisis, not more toothless proposals from the Trump administration.”
EPA spokesperson Corry Schiermeyer tells PEOPLE in an email that the the proposed changes to the standards do not mean that the agency would drop its responsibility to protect public health. “The criticisms are wrong, this draft is not a regulation and is not weak,” Schiermeyer writes.
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,said in a statementthat the EPA’s guidance “fails to adequately protect public health from this emerging crisis.”
“[EPA] Administrator Wheeler said that safe drinking water is the greatest environmental challenge facing our world,” Carper said, “yet, again, we see that EPA is not addressing this issue in the manner in which it demands, nor with the urgency in which Americans deserve.”
source: people.com
