{"id":903519,"date":"2026-06-30T17:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/903519\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T17:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:17:18","slug":"after-bold-pledge-epa-shelves-microplastics-testing-in-u-s-drinking-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/903519\/","title":{"rendered":"After bold pledge, EPA shelves microplastics testing in U.S. drinking water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the next five years, the Environmental Protection Agency has indicated it will not require public water utilities to test for microplastics or pharmaceuticals in drinking water, according to a proposed rule published in the Federal Register. <\/p>\n

On Friday, the EPA submitted a list of chemicals it plans to test for under the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, a mandatory testing program used to collect information about concerning chemicals in drinking water that could be harming human health. It did not include microplastics or pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n

The omissions come after announcements <\/a>by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin earlier this year that his agency was designating microplastics and pharmaceuticals priority contaminants for testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a direct response to the concern of millions of Americans who have long demanded answers about what they and their families are drinking every day,\u201d he said at an April news conference with Health and Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy at EPA headquarters. <\/p>\n

Zeldin\u2019s announcement was seen at the time as a move to placate the increasingly disgruntled Make America Healthy Again contingent of Trump supporters. <\/p>\n

Now the agency says it has no validated or standardized method to test for the plastic particles in drinking water, and wouldn\u2019t be able to develop one before December, when testing is required to begin.<\/p>\n

Among the 33 chemicals the EPA will require water utilities to test for are seven PFAS, or forever chemicals, and three pesticide residues. <\/p>\n

It will be five years before the EPA proposes another list.<\/p>\n

The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The agency noted in its proposed rule<\/a> that it will collaborate with other federal agencies to \u201cevaluate risks and exposures\u201d of microplastics for future monitoring. <\/p>\n

Environmentalists reacted with frustration and resignation. They pointed out that the European Union has developed methods to test for the tiny plastic particles, which have been found in people\u2019s blood, brains and lung tissue. California has one in the works. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe California water board has spent a lot of time and money on how to measure in drinking water,\u201d said Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator and president of the anti-plastic environmental group Beyond Plastics \u201cEPA should give them a call.\u201d<\/p>\n

California was required by a 2018 state law to establish a protocol for local water utilities to test for the particles in drinking water. The state has not yet begun reporting its results, but protocols were established<\/a> in 2021. Blair Robertson, a spokesman for the State Water Resources Control Board, said it\u2019s not \u201ca fully validated, end-to-end regulatory method\u201d yet. <\/p>\n

At the April meeting, Zeldin announced that he would place microplastics on what is known as the Contaminant Candidate List, which acts as a preliminary \u201cwatch list\u201d of unregulated, priority contaminants in drinking water. Like the mandatory monitoring list, it is updated only every five years. The most recent list was published on April 2 \u2014 the day he made his announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans have been ignored as they sound the alarm about plastics in their drinking water,\u201d Zeldin said at the April announcement. \u201cThat ends today by placing microplastics on the contaminant candidate list for the first time ever. EPA will follow the science, will pursue answers and will hold ourselves to the highest standards to protect the health of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

There appears to be no clear association between these two lists, although the contaminant list is supposed to inform the monitoring list. Seventy-five chemicals and four chemical groups (microplastics, pharmaceuticals, PFAS chemicals, and disinfection byproducts) were listed on the 2026 contaminant list. Only seven of those chemicals were also on the proposed monitoring list (as well as seven PFAS chemicals).<\/p>\n

When Zeldin announced microplastics as \u201c\u2018a priority contaminant for regulation,\u2019 and called it \u2018a historic action on microplastics,\u2019 he made it seem like the administration was going to take microplastics seriously,\u201d said Mary Grant, water policy director for the environmental group Food & Water Watch. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy not including them, they made it clear they don\u2019t actually have plans to immediately address this crisis by getting the real-world monitoring data that we need right now to really start correcting ourselves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Craig Davis, senior director of plastics chemistry at the American Chemistry Council \u2014 the nation\u2019s largest trade group for chemical companies \u2014 said that while his organization supports microplastic research, it also agrees with the EPA\u2019s decision not to include them in the monitoring list.<\/p>\n

\u201cNational drinking water monitoring should be based on validated, standardized methods that can produce reliable and comparable data,\u201d said Davis in a statement. He said \u201climited\u201d national monitoring resources should be focused where data can produce \u201cactionable public health information.\u201d<\/p>\n

The public has 60 days to comment once the plan is published in the Federal Register. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the next five years, the Environmental Protection Agency has indicated it will not require public water utilities…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":903520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[9331,42044,30953,365808,746,11621,139847,11804,365807,34595,61507,365809,159,6620,365806,67,132,68,1628,36209],"class_list":["post-903519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-americans","tag-announcement","tag-chemical","tag-contaminant-candidate-list","tag-environment","tag-epa","tag-human-health","tag-list","tag-mandatory-monitoring-list","tag-microplastic","tag-pharmaceutical","tag-pharmaceutical-priority-contaminant","tag-science","tag-time","tag-u-s-drinking-water","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-year","tag-zeldin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}