The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will no longer defend drinking water safeguards that protect Americans from four toxic PFAS chemicals, also known as “forever chemicals.” The EPA is also asking the federal court to throw out existing limits that protect drinking water from those four PFAS chemicals (PFNA, PFHxS, GenX, and PFBS).
Current rules require water utilities nationwide to test drinking water for PFAS and to install filtration or find a new water source if high levels of PFAS are detected. If the EPA succeeds in rolling back these critical drinking water protections, over 1 million New Yorkers will be exposed to dangerous PFAS contamination every time they turn on the tap.
Rob Hayes, Senior Director of Clean Water at Environmental Advocates NY, said “The EPA’s announcement is a big win for corporate polluters and an enormous loss for New York families…New Yorkers will pay the price of this disastrous plan through medical bills — and deaths — tied to kidney cancer, thyroid disease, and other harmful illnesses linked to PFAS.
“New York’s leaders can’t allow the Trump administration to take away our drinking water protections. Governor Hochul and the NYS Department of Health have the authority to continue implementing the Biden administration’s strong, health-protective PFAS standards here in New York. If they don’t, we urge the State Legislature to advance a bill, currently sponsored by Senator Brian Kavanagh and Assemblymember Grace Lee, that would codify these clean water safeguards once and for all.”
PFAS are a class of over 15,000 toxic chemicals linked to kidney cancer, thyroid disease, and other harmful illnesses. EPA has concluded that there is no safe level of exposure to at least two PFAS chemicals, PFOA and PFOS.
The Biden EPA finalized landmark regulations on six PFAS chemicals in drinking water in April 2024. Under those regulations, which are currently in force, water utilities must complete initial PFAS testing by 2027 and comply with the standards by 2029.
The EPA announced its intention to rollback the federal PFAS standards, including delaying protections on PFOA and PFOS by two years, in May 2025.
Over 1 million New Yorkers are exposed to at least one of the four PFAS for which EPA has asked the court to scrap protections. This means that those communities will not even be required to monitor for those chemicals or be assured that the PFAS remain at safe levels. A recent study also found that at more than 1.3 million New Yorkers are exposed to between 4 and 10 ppt of PFOA or PFOS.
New York has the authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act to continue implementing the EPA’s standards, even if the EPA won’t. Senator Brian Kavanagh and Assemblymember Grace Lee have introduced a bill (S.3207-A/A.8634) in the State Legislature to codify the federal PFAS standards in state statute.
