EPA’s drinking water limits for PFAS are under threat – and that’s nothing new

Several unexpected plaintiffs are behind a legal challenge aiming to kill the Environmental Protection Agency’s groundbreaking new drinking water limits for highly toxic PFAS: the US’s water utilities, represented by their major trade groups.

But utility industry opposition to clean water regulations is nothing new. Though utilities’ mission is to provide the US with clean and safe water, their trade groups have for decades often fiercely opposed initiatives to improve quality.

Utilities have successfully helped kill, delay or weaken virtually all proposed limits on toxic substances like lead, the rocket fuel perchlorate, and carcinogenic disinfectants.

The utility industry also lobbied to weaken the Safe Drinking Water Act’s 1996 revision, which is largely why the EPA since then has only successfully set a new limit for one contaminant – PFAS – and that still may be undone, said Erik Olson, senior adviser to the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, who also lobbied on the legislation.

The US now faces a baffling scenario in which those who are responsible for cleaning its water are considered to be the biggest obstacle to safe water, public health advocates say. Utilities often work “arm and arm” with the chemical industry to attack rules, Olson said.

“It has been across the board that when the EPA tries to advance strong new rules, many utilities fight against it,” he added.

Two major trade groups lead the campaigns – the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and Association of Metropolitan Water Companies, the former of which was a public health group at its outset. They represent thousands of utilities, though not all utilities nationwide agree with the trade groups’ positions. The cost for membership is baked into customers’ bills, creating a situation in which consumers are funding the attacks on their water quality.

The AWWA is led by Cheryl Porter, an executive with the Great Lakes Water Authority, which delivers water in southeast Michigan. PFAS and lead are a major problem in Michigan, but in her role at AWWA, critics say Porter is leading an organization that is trying to thwart proposals that would clean up the state’s water.

She did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, the AWWA said it doesn’t oppose PFAS limits, but it is against those the EPA proposed because, it alleges, the EPA “did not use the best science and data in finalizing the rule”.

Industry frequently downplays the public health risks of toxic substances and claims the cost to remove them are too high. In late 2023, at a conference at which industry honed its legal attack on PFAS limits, an AWWA manager “questioned whether regulating PFAS in drinking water represents a meaningful opportunity for public health risk reduction” despite overwhelming evidence that the chemicals are toxic at very low levels.

The industry has been particularly opposed to limiting lead and removing lead lines. In 1991, when the EPA proposed a rule that would have required utilities to replace lead lines, the AWWA sued, calling it financially “burdensome”. Olson, who worked on the case as an attorney for NRDC, said the EPA caved to AWWA pressure and only required utilities to replace some parts of lead lines when limits exceeded, and the remainder of the cost was put on homeowners.

Because of that, many of the nation’s water systems still have lead lines. The Biden administration last year announced a plan to require all lead lines to be replaced within 10 years regardless of whether there is an exceedance of limits, and made $3.5bn in federal funding available.

The AWWA opposes the proposal, and is lobbying the administration, claiming it supports the goal of replacing lead lines, but said the rules “are not feasible”, especially in that time frame. Its consultants estimated the initiative would cost $90bn, a figure NRDC wrote is based on flawed methodology intended to inflate the estimated cost so they can justify killing the rules.

“If they had just agreed in 1991 to a reasonable time frame then the pipes would already be gone, but instead they’ve been fighting it for decades,” Olson said.

Former EPA manager and current Harvard researcher Ronnie Levine recalled an anecdote she said is emblematic of how the utility industry kills or weakens rules. The EPA in 1994 was attempting to address carcinogenic byproducts created from disinfectants, or pesticides, used to treat water for microbes. The EPA established a working group with utility industry representatives and developed the rules over the course of a year, Levine said.

Industry helped write the rules and agreed on the language, but soon after the rules were proposed, the Chlorine Chemistry Council sued to kill them, Levine said. Meanwhile, utility trade groups lobbied to weaken the rules, Olson said.

“That was disruptive, disingenuous, it was unfair and it did not serve the public interest,” she said.

In 2011, the EPA began the process for placing drinking water limits for perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel that is estimated to be contaminating water for 12m people. But the rules, opposed by the AWWA, have yet to be implemented. The failure to establish limits is mostly due to the group succeeding in pressuring the EPA to include numerous obstacles in its implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act’s 1996 revision. That made the limit setting process highly complex and presented ample opportunity to tie up proposed rules.

When Congress revised the act, some utilities “succeeded in eviscerating the standard setting provisions,” Olson said. Since then, over 40 contaminants have been identified as chemicals of concern in water but the PFAS limits were the first to make it through the 10-year limit setting process.

Utilities also successfully weakened a 2024 measure that would have required them to alert customers to toxic substances in their water and banned them from making false statements in reports to consumers.

Public health advocates concede the cost of meeting new standards is a challenge. Utilities already face enormous criticism over shut offs for low income consumers. Meanwhile, many water departments are part of city governments and they face political pressure to keep rates down.

Those factors have kept water rates “artificially low”, said Elin Betanzo, a Michigan-based utility consultant, and basic water infrastructure in many districts is in disrepair. There is also a shortage of technical experts to work at the utilities, Betanzo added, and the nation should invest in creating a talent pipeline.

Governments at all levels should spend more so utilities do not have to significantly increase rates to meet new regulations, advocates say. However, the utilities seem to spend their limited resources attacking clean water rules more than attempting lobbying for funding.

“They say, ‘Our customers need low water rates’, but nobody wants to save money on unsafe water,” Betanzo said. “Somehow they have enough money for lobbyists to fight regulations.”

In its statement to the Guardian, the AWWA said it does not oppose new rules, adding “We strongly support the polluter pays principle when it comes to addressing PFAS in water, rather than passing on costs to drinking water consumers.”

Many utilities are managed by conservative people ideologically opposed to regulations, Levine said, and Olson added that those that are opposed to new regulations “are often the loudest voices”.

“It’s the folks that don’t want to do anything who rule the day,” Olson said.