CLEVELAND — The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing new regulations to make drinking water safer. Now the EPA wants to limit the amount of the PFAS “forever chemical" compounds found in drinking water.
PFAS can be found everywhere from kitchen supplies to food wrappers and it tends to linger in the environment and our bodies.
“It has become more prevalent in manufacturing to use PFAS chemicals in a development of a number of products,” said Pete Bucher, Chief of Staff, Ohio Environmental Council.
PFAS can lead to contaminated drinking water, which can cause cancer, fertility, asthma, and other health risks is someone is exposed to for it long periods of time.
“There's just a lot of exposure points for us in Ohio and across the globe, really,” Bucher said.
For the first time, the EPA has proposed new rules for water systems nationwide to monitor PFAS. They'll have to notify the public about PFAS levels and work to reduce them if levels go above the allowed amount. The government intends to require near-zero levels of PFAS.
The Ohio EPA said it will receive $150 million in federal funding over the next five years to monitor emerging contaminants. The EPA said part of the money comes from the Federal Infrastructure Law passed in 2021 and other federal funds. More than $46 million of that funding is intended to help small, rural and underserved communities access safe drinking water. The money will pay for testing and treating water for pollutants like PFAS chemicals.
Certain products that contain PFAS are still legal in the state of Ohio and are often used as firefighting agents. One product is Class B firefighting foam. It's a blanketing agent used on carbon-based fires which can happen at gas stations or airports.
“Class B historically had a lot of PFAS chemicals, and a lot of the stockpiles still do; we are trying to make a move away from PFAS,” said Robert Bures, a firefighter with the Parma Fire Department.
Cleveland Water tells News 5 that in partnership with the Ohio EPA, no PFAS have been detected in the lake water coming into the water treatment plants and the finished drinking water. The Ohio EPA said it's reviewing the new rules but adds the new proposal does not require any action until it's finalized, and water systems will have three years to comply.
The Ohio Environmental Council believes these new rules will help make Ohioans safer and healthier.
“We love to see standards like this here so if the federal government sets that for us, as the state of Ohio, we think that's a step in the right direction,” Bucher added.
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
