EPA issues draft health criteria for PFAS levels in waterways; recommendations to guide states, tribes in setting water quality standards for three chemicals

Criteria can be used to inform water quality standards to protect people from exposure to PFAS

WASHINGTON – Today, December 19, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced draft national recommendations for health-based levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in waterbodies. Once final, these recommended criteria can be used by states and authorized Tribes to set water quality standards that help protect people from exposure through consuming water, fish and shellfish from inland and nearshore waterbodies that may be polluted by these PFAS.

EPA’s draft recommended human health criteria identify concentrations of three PFAS in a water body at or below where they are not expected to cause adverse human health effects from chronic (lifetime) exposure. The three chemicals are perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS). Human health criteria are not regulatory requirements and do not, on their own, compel any action. Rather they are information for entities, including state and Tribal regulators, to consider when making policy decisions that protect water quality.

Human health criteria are developed under Clean Water Act Section 304(a) and are based solely on the available data and scientific judgments about the impacts of pollutant levels in the water body (in this case PFAS) on people’s health. Human health criteria are based on the latest scientific knowledge and do not consider economic impacts or the technological feasibility of meeting the chemical concentrations in ambient water, though Clean Water Act tools that use human health criteria may incorporate such factors.

The draft recommended human health criteria for PFOA, PFOS, and PFBS are based on the latest science, including final EPA human health assessments, fish consumption rates, drinking water intake rates, national bioaccumulation factors, and relative source contributions.