EPA limits remain on 'forever chemicals' – for now. See what's in your drinking water.
More than 37 million Americans drink water from systems that exceed limits on toxic "forever chemicals," according to Paste BN's analysis of the first update of Environmental Protection Agency data under the Trump administration.
The EPA had been updating the records quarterly like clockwork, but the latest data release came more than a month later than expected, tucked amid an onslaught of cuts and changes within the agency.
The regulatory rollbacks announced earlier this month include repealing emission limits on power plants, reducing the number of waterways protected by the Clean Water Act and reconsidering limits on car exhaust set to take effect in 2027.
One program that survived, though, was the EPA’s effort to monitor public drinking water systems for almost 30 types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. They’re part of a class of thousands of manmade chemicals that don’t easily decompose in nature. Because of this, they build up in human bodies and can lead to certain cancers and other serious health complications.
The number of affected drinking water systems grows with each update as the EPA adds more test results, and Paste BN’s analysis shows annual averages at 667 water systems have now surpassed limits the EPA announced a year ago. Check your local drinking water system’s results in the map below, or explore the full map here.
Under current rules, this means the utilities must stop using contaminated wells or install expensive advanced filtration systems by 2029. However, clean water advocates fear the EPA could change or delay the standards, or pending lawsuits brought by water utilities could strike them down.
Even if the limits change, the number of utilities that report finding PFAS will surely grow as the EPA collects more test results through next year. Many cities still haven’t submitted a full set of records.
The EPA estimated last year that the PFAS limits could affect up to 6,000 water systems and protect about 100 million Americans who rely on those utilities for drinking water.
Subtle wording shifts in EPA data summary
Last year’s PFAS limits were not included among 31 Biden-era regulations that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin repealed earlier this month, but “that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” according to Betsy Southerland. She retired in 2017 as director of science and technology in the EPA’s water office, after spending more than three decades with the agency.
“I think they absolutely plan to redo (the limit) as a less stringent one, and we’re going to know sooner rather than later,” Southerland said, calling it a “heartbreak for everybody.”
EPA Associate Administrator for Public Affairs Molly Vaseliou neither confirmed nor denied whether changes are coming to the PFAS limits, responding by email simply that “EPA is reviewing the rule to inform next steps.”
“EPA is committed to partnering with states, using its statutory authorities, and advancing water infrastructure funding opportunities to address PFAS and ensure that every American has access to clean and safe water as envisioned by Congress in the Safe Drinking Water Act,” Vaseliou wrote.
She did not explain why the records were delayed by several weeks, writing that “EPA posted these updated data as quickly as practicable.”
Southerland pointed out that the records show most water systems that find PFAS detect multiple kinds of these chemicals. The EPA has limits on only six types, which Southerland says act as “surrogates” for the 15,000 other forever chemicals that could show up in drinking water.
“If a drinking water system takes out those six and meets regulatory (limits) for those six, you will also serendipitously remove a lot of the ones that you don’t know are there and you don’t know how toxic it is,” Southerland said.
A data summary accompanying the EPA’s PFAS records echoes that idea, but the section that deals with this co-occurrence of forever chemicals was significantly shortened when compared with its last iteration, published last fall.
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Southerland called it “outrageous” to remove the sentence that stated the PFAS rule would “provide additional public health protection and benefits because the best available drinking water treatment technologies have been demonstrated to co-remove other PFAS and non-PFAS contaminants that may have adverse health effects.”
She sees this small edit as another sign the EPA plans to revisit the regulation because its removal chips away at evidence showing how the new PFAS limits benefit Americans.
“It’s very difficult to monetize the benefits. You can monetize the cost down to the penny, right?” Southerland said, listing water treatment equipment and chemicals as examples. “(But avoiding) low-birth-weight children, reproductive problems … death from liver cancer, bladder cancer or testicular cancer: You know, these things are very difficult for the EPA to put a dollar amount on.”
When asked to explain the wording change, Vasileou wrote that the EPA updated the data summary with links to other EPA web pages “to assure the reader had more complete information about PFAS rule requirements.”
However, that section of the report had the same links in October and January.
Trade associations representing water utilities sued last summer to challenge the PFAS rule, and that lawsuit was put on a 60-day hold in February to allow the Trump administration “to review the underlying rule.”
Many water system representatives have told Paste BN the regulation unfairly saddles them and their customers with the high cost of installing filtration rather than putting it on the industries responsible for the pollution.
To address this problem, the EPA under the Biden administration had been considering a rule to limit the amount of PFAS that certain manufacturers could release into the environment. That plan was withdrawn the day after President Donald Trump took office in January.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021 included multibillion-dollar grant programs to help small or disadvantaged communities defray costs of addressing PFAS contamination. However, mentions of two such programs were removed from this month’s update of the data summary, and the EPA replaced the phrase “small, rural and disadvantaged communities” with “local communities.”
Southerland suspects this change to be part of what she called the new administration’s “bizarre conflation of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) with environmental justice.”
“All environmental justice is doing is trying to follow the pollution and prioritize the most polluted communities in the country and to put resources there,” Southerland said. “The Trump administration has told EPA that the environmental justice program is ‘forced discrimination.’”
Vaseliou, the EPA spokesperson, declined to respond directly to Southerland’s claim, but she did write that the two grant programs remain available for communities that need help addressing forever chemicals.
“This change in wording does not indicate any change in EPA’s priorities for PFAS, and our emphasis on addressing PFAS in communities across the country,” Vaseliou wrote.
What happens if the PFAS standards get nixed?
Project 2025, a blueprint of policy ideas crafted by the conservative Heritage Foundation, suggests revisiting last year’s designation of two forever chemicals as "hazardous substances" as well as revising groundwater cleanup regulations "to reflect the challenges of omnipresent contaminants like PFAS."
Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail, but Paste BN has reported that several policies he has enacted since taking office closely mirror the project’s language.
Just 11 states have limits on PFAS in drinking water, and most of these state laws are not as strict as the federal limits the EPA approved last year, according to Jared Hayes, senior policy analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Environmental Working Group.
Using the new EPA data, Hayes estimates tens of millions of Americans would lose protection should the federal limits get scrapped or loosened. They live in places without local limits that have recently detected PFAS over the federal limit at least once.
“It shouldn’t be up to the individual to be aware of every single contaminant in their water and address it themselves, particularly if they're on public water,” Hayes said. “They should have some amount of protection without having to think about whether the water coming out of my tap is safe.”
Furthermore, Hayes pointed out the PFAS limits approved last year now dictate monitoring and cleanup levels at Superfund sites and military bases that have contaminated local drinking water supplies across the country.
In September 2024, the Defense Department adjusted its PFAS policy based on the EPA’s new limits to provide clean water to people living near military bases when their wells test at least three times over the EPA limit of 4 parts per trillion (ppt). Up till then, they had been providing water only when wells tested over 70 ppt.
According to Defense Department spokesman Robert Ditchey, PFAS investigations are ongoing at about 400 military locations across the U.S., and they’ve already provided clean water to households near 55 bases stretching from Maine to California.
Ditchey estimated about 2,000 additional wells at private households near bases have tested between the new limit of 4 ppt and the previous action level of 70 ppt, meaning they’ll also need to be addressed to comply with the EPA limit.
“Prioritizing action where PFAS levels from DoD (Department of Defense) releases are the highest ensures a consistent ‘worst first’ approach nationwide,” Ditchey wrote via email. “Because DoD anticipates that a significant number of private drinking water wells will require action, a prioritized approach is necessary and consistent with the federal cleanup law and its regulations.”
However, Hayes notes, should the PFAS limits get rolled back, delayed or changed, then the military might not need to follow through on its new cleanup guidance.
“And that is going to be a problem for the hundreds of communities across the U.S. who are dealing with this problem,” he said.