EPA fires back at Cuomo administration over PFOA crisis
EPA says state shouldn't blame feds over bungled PFOA response
By Brendan J. Lyons
Updated 7:36 am, Friday, September 2, 2016
Albany, NY
Gina McCarthy, the administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, on Thursday fired back at New York's commissioners of health and environmental conservation, who this week accused the federal agency of giving "conflicting guidance" about a toxic chemical that polluted water supplies in eastern Rensselaer County.
On Tuesday, the state agencies released a letter in which they cast blame at the EPA for issues in the state's handling of the crisis, including guiding local officials who waited more than a year to warn residents in the village of Hoosick Falls to stop drinking the PFOA-contaminated water. The state's letter was issued as a Senate hearing began in Hoosick Falls that day in which legislators called on government officials to explain their responses to the situation.
"I urge you to move beyond accusatory letters and, rather, work cooperatively with EPA Region 2 and the residents of Hoosick Falls on the important work of cleaning up the contamination in the village and protecting the public drinking water supply," McCarthy wrote in a letter Thursday to DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos and Health Commissioner Howard A. Zucker.
McCarthy's letter questioned the assertion by Seggos and Zucker that "changing" EPA guidelines on PFOA resulted in "undue public confusion."
The finger-pointing between the state agencies and the EPA started earlier this year, when New York officials came under fire as a result of internal emails and other records indicating they downplayed the significance of any harm to public health from the contaminated water. The EPA, meanwhile, has faced criticism for waiting years to issue an advisory on the potential adverse health effects from long-term exposure to PFOA in drinking water systems.
PFOA is a toxic chemical used since the 1940s in the manufacture of industrial and household products. Plants in eastern Rensselaer County and North Bennington, Vt., used the chemical for decades, and PFOA has been discovered in wells in those areas. Human health studies have found links between PFOA exposure and six diseases: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, pregnan-cy-induced hypertension and high cholesterol.
In December, more than a year after PFOA was discovered at elevated levels in Hoosick Falls, the state Health Department distributed "fact sheets" saying no adverse health effects were expected from drinking the contaminated water. The EPA's Region 2 administrator, Judith Enck, issued a statement days later urging people not to drink the water or use it for cooking. Enck also wrote a letter urging Mayor David Borge to stop saying it's a "personal choice" whether to consume the polluted water.
For years, New York has adhered to a standard that does not raise health alarms unless unregulated contaminants such as PFOA exceed 50,000 parts per trillion. The state's reliance on that threshold took place even though the EPA in 2009 issued an advisory about the potential health risks of consuming water with more than 400 ppt of PFOA for short periods, which the EPA said meant weeks or months.
While the state did not warn resident to stop consuming water in Hoosick Falls, a Health Department spokesman said the state did take action, including exploring alternate water supplies and filtration options.
In May, the EPA issued a nationwide advisory declaring the maximum level of PFOA in drinking water for lifetime exposure should not exceed 70 ppt.
In Hoosick Falls, tests of the public water supply in 2014 showed levels of PFOA above 500 ppt.
But McCarthy, in her letter to New York's commissioners, said the EPA's 2009 short-term advisory made clear that people should not consume water with more than 400 ppt of PFOA for long periods of time.
"Further contending in your letter, as you do, that EPA contributed to your agencies' confusion by changing the level of the drinking water health advisories for PFOA is ... difficult to understand," McCarthy's letter states. "These health advisories do not conflict with one another, they complement one another."
The state Health Department and EPA both were notified in 2014 that the levels of PFOA in the village's water supply exceeded the levels recommended in the EPA's 2009 short-term exposure advisory. But state and local leaders said the EPA's guideline was not binding or enforceable but only advisory, and that since PFOA was an unregulated contaminant there was no need to warn the public to stop drinking the water. At the same time, state and local officials began exploring filtering options and alternative water supplies for village residents, who were fered free bottled water more than a year after the chemical was discovered in the water.
In a joint statement Thursday afternoon, the agencies repeated their criticism of Enck, and her decision not to appear at Tuesday's Senate hearing: "We encourage the Region 2 Administrator to move beyond making inflammatory statements to the media and encourage her to accept the State Legislature's invitation to testify at the water quality hearings. She has previously appeared before the New York State Assembly on issues like climate change, and it's unfortunate that she is choosing to duck her responsibility to answer questions about the EPA's role in the response to the Hoosick Falls water contamination."
State health officials and members of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration have taken the position that studies have only shown an "association" between PFOA exposure and diseases such as kidney cancer and thyroid disease.
Robert A. Bilott, an Ohio attorney who has taken on DuPont for its production of the hazardous chemical that's polluted water supplies across the country, has criticized New York officials for mischaracterizing the findings of the health studies that examined links between PFOA exposure and life-threatening diseases.
Bilott said a science panel formed as a result of the litigation with DuPont did a comprehensive study of the health effects of exposure to PFOA and issued a report concluding the chemical has a "probable link" to six diseases, including kidney and testicular cancer.
But the attorney also has criticized the EPA for its response to the nation's PFOA contamination of water. In July, after a congressional panel announced it was investigating the handling of the Hoosick Falls water crisis, Bilott urged the federal panel to examine the EPA's actions on the contaminant.
"Although we understand that the developments in Hoosick Falls since 2014 are what triggered the committee's current investigation, EPA's delay in responding to PFOA drinking water contamination issues extends far beyond Hoosick Falls and well beyond the events of the last two years," Bilott told the congressional panel. "We continued, repeatedly, to press EPA to take appropriate action in this regard as more and more PFOA contamination was discovered between 2001 and 2006 in drinking water supplies in West Virginia, Ohio, Minnesota, and New Jersey, leading to significantly elevated PFOA blood levels in the residents drinking that water."
At least six public water systems in New York have detected PFOA over the new guidance standard. Bilott said the EPA retreated from investigating PFOA contamination after it reached an agreement with manufacturers in 2006 that they would phase out their use of the chemical by last year. The EPA's 2006 agreement with DuPont and other manufacturers came a year after DuPont agreed to pay $10.25 million to settle a complaint brought by the EPA over the company's PFOA pollution in the Midwest.
Congress Leads Inquiry into Hoosick Falls Water Contamination
July 20, 2016 | Environmental Litigation
Recent controversial discoveries regarding the Hoosick Falls, NY public water contamination law suit have brought to question the manner in which the state and federal government chose to deal with rectifying the issue. The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent letters Wednesday to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency demanding documents for the pending congressional probe into the water pollution. Subsequently, the investigation found it was apparent that officials at all levels of government were aware for more than a year that a hazardous chemical, PFOA, had contaminated the Rensselaer County water system. However, residents were never warned to stop consuming from the villages public and private water supply.
Evidence from email threads dating back to December 2014 revealed that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was informed of the water pollution, yet failed to pass this information on to the public. In December 2015, Hoosick Falls David Borge was advised by Environmental and Health agencies to stop telling the residents it was a “personal choice” to drink the contaminated water as he was relying on “fact sheets” that apparently stated no adverse health effects were expected from normal use of the village’s water. Residents were issued the same fact sheets that same month.
Despite an extensively reported health study that clearly links PFOA, the same chemical appearing in the village’s water supply, to kidney cancer and multiple other diseases, the State Health Department remained silent. Not only was this a recent discovery, but also in 2009 an advisory was released warning that short-term exposure to water containing levels of PFOA above 400 parts per trillion is not safe. Yet, the Hoosick Falls’ water system recorded levels at more than 600 ppt.
PFOA is a toxic chemical that has been used since the 1940s to make industrial and household products such as nonstick coatings, specialty tapes and heat-resistant wiring. Several specialty manufacturing plants in eastern Rensselaer County and North Bennington, Vt., used the chemical for decades before studies emerged 10 years ago linking the substance to cancer and other serious diseases.
“It raises serious questions that the county and state would continue to assure residents the water was safe to drink even though the federal government had already warned residents to the contrary,” the House committee wrote in its letter to Cuomo.
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Michael Reaves, The Denver Post A water tower overlooks the community of Security in the foreground of Pike’s Peak on June 8, 2016. A invisible toxic chemical has been discovered in the drinking water that affects 70,000 people in the communities south of Colorado Springs.
By The Associated Press
UPDATED: August 18, 2016 at 3:34 pm
By JENNIFER McDERMOTT, Associated Press
The U.S. Air Force is changing the foam it uses to fight fires because of concerns the substance has contaminated groundwater and spread to drinking water at some military sites.
The Air Force said it awarded a $6.2 million contract on Monday to replace the firefighting foam with an “environmentally responsible foam” to reduce the risk of possible contamination of soil and groundwater.
The current foam is used where potentially catastrophic fuel fires can occur, such as in a plane crash, because it can rapidly extinguish the flames. It contains perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS and PFOA, which are both considered emerging contaminants by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and have been linked to cancer and other illnesses.
The EPA issued stricter guidelines for human exposure to these chemicals in May, after years of pressure from public health experts and advocacy groups. The agency said the new limits were prompted by recent scientific studies linking the chemicals to testicular and kidney cancers, as well as birth defects and liver damage.
The chemicals have been detected in water at some current and former bases where the military has conducted fire or crash training. In Colorado, health officials said Wednesday that it’s highly likely that trace amounts of toxic chemicals found in three drinking water systems came from firefighting foam used at nearby Peterson Air Force Base, where firefighters used the foam in training exercises.
The new formulation does not have PFOS and contains little or no PFOA.
Mark Kinkade, spokesman for the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, said the Air Force has completed preliminary assessments at all of its sites and is now sampling groundwater and soil. He said the Air Force still has “a lot of work to do” but at the same time it’s working to protect human health and the environment by changing foams and taking other steps to ensure that foam is used safely.
Air Force fire chief James Podolske Jr. said the service must continue to use foam in its defense operations to protect people, weapon systems and infrastructure, but it will “do so in a more environmentally responsible way that also makes our operations safer for the public.”
The Air Force will no longer use the foam in training exercises, and the service plans to replace all foam in fire vehicles and at fire stations with the new formula by the end of this year. It also is retrofitting its aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicles with equipment that lets firefighters conduct vehicle operational checks and required annual foam tests without discharging the foam into the environment.
The Defense Department said earlier this year it’s examining hundreds of sites nationwide for potential contamination from the foam. It wasn’t immediately clear Thursday whether the Navy and Army are changing foams, too.
A Defense Department spokesman said the department is disposing of older foams, wherever possible, buying new foams that do not contain PFOS and investing in research to develop a foam that doesn’t contain the chemicals and can be certified to meet military standards.
PFOA has also been used in consumer products, such as nonstick pans, stain-resistant carpets and microwave popcorn bags, and has been found in the tap water of dozens of factory towns near industrial sites where it was manufactured.
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Michael Reaves, The Denver Post A water tower overlooks the community of Security in the foreground of Pike’s Peak on June 8, 2016. A invisible toxic chemical has been discovered in the drinking water that affects 70,000 people in the communities south of Colorado Springs.
By The Associated Press
PUBLISHED: August 17, 2016 at 4:56 pm | UPDATED: August 17, 2016 at 6:16 pm
By Dan Elliott, The Associated Press
The military said Wednesday it has identified six places on an Air Force base in Colorado where firefighting foam containing toxic chemicals may have escaped into the environment and made its way into drinking water in two nearby communities.
Engineers who conducted the review recommended a follow-up investigation at Peterson Air Force Base, where the foam was used in firefighting drills and equipment tests. It contained perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs, which have been linked to prostate, kidney and testicular cancer, along with other illnesses.
The military is checking bases nationwide for possible releases of the foam into the environment.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the next phase of the investigation at Peterson would entail. The Air Force previously announced plans to drill monitoring wells and take soil samples to determine whether the chemicals were seeping into underground water from the base.
The PFCs were found in three water systems serving about 69,000 people in the city of Fountain and an unincorporated community called Security-Widefield. The chemicals have not been definitively traced to Peterson, but its proximity to the affected systems spurred the investigation.
The PFCs also were widely used in non-stick coatings on cookware and in other applications. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered water systems nationwide to test for the compounds between 2013 and 2015.
The Fountain, Security and Widefield districts found the chemicals at levels that exceed the EPA’s suggested limits. PFCs didn’t show up in any other districts.
Colorado health officials have said the communities have higher rates of kidney cancer than surrounding populations, but the evidence was not sufficient to definitively blame PFCs. They noted that the residents also have higher rates of obesity and smoking, which are linked to cancer.
The Air Force previously agreed to spend $4.3 million to install filters in the three systems to remove PFCs. Contractors were still working out the details, Peterson spokesman Steve Brady said.
The Security Water District has shifted almost entirely to surface water — from rivers and lakes — since the PFCs were found, Manager Roy Heald said Wednesday. Previously, about half the district’s water came from wells and half from surface water.
Heald expects the district to use surface water entirely soon, following modifications to the system.
The Fountain Water Department has not used wells since October and got through this summer’s peak demand period entirely on surface water, Utilities Director Curtis Mitchell said.
The director of the Widefield water system wasn’t immediately available to comment, his staff said.
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DEADLY FOAM: the National Fire Laboratory is the source of perfluoroalkylated chemicals (PFAS) that contaminated the drinking water in Mississippi Mills, Ontario
Fire lab source of chemicals found in drinking water, NRC confirms
'This is the first time they've actually owned that piece of the mystery,' says mayor
By Ashley Burke, CBC News Posted: Jul 08, 2016 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jul 08, 2016 6:22 AM ET
Media toured the National Fire Lab in Mississippi Mills in February 2012. (CBC News)
Government officials have confirmed the National Fire Laboratory is the source of chemicals that contaminated the drinking water in Mississippi Mills, Ont.
Homeowners living near the facility found out in December 2015 that perfluoroalkylated substances, or PFAS, were discovered in their tap water. It's the same chemical often found in firefighting foams.
'They admitted they were essentially ground zero of the problem.' - Mississippi Mills Mayor Shaun McLaughlin
In an emailed statement to CBC News, the National Research Council confirmed Thursday that "ongoing environmental assessments have indicated that PFAS found in the nearby residential wells originated from the National Fire Laboratory site.
"Since identifying PFAS at the National Research Council's National Fire Laboratory, our focus has been on carrying out an effective and thorough environmental assessment and on the continued safeguarding of the health and safety of residents and employees," the statement said.
"They admitted they were essentially ground zero of the problem," said the municipality's mayor, Shaun McLaughlin. "This is the first time they've actually owned that piece of the mystery."
Back in 2013, the NRC knew contaminants were found in the groundwater from drill sites close to the facility.
Two years later, the government department started delivering bottled water to some neighbouring homes and paying for charcoal water filtration systems.
J.D. Heffern, his wife and three daughters learned their drinking water may be contaminated in December 2015. (Submitted Photo)
Residents pushing for answers
Ever since, residents in more than 70 homes in the community of Ramsay Meadows have been pushing for answers. The NRC says it's been carrying out environmental assessments.
"Results to date indicate low to no detection of PFAS in residential water..." said the NRC in a statement to CBC News. "According to Health Canada, there are no expected health impacts over a lifetime of exposure, if levels of PFAS in drinking water fall below the applicable Health Canada screening values."
A working group representing the Ramsay Meadows homeowners says they appreciate the NRC being honest about the results. The department's acting president, Maria Aubrey, met with two of the residents at the end of June.
"We are kind of taken aback a little bit," said chairperson J.D. Heffern. "They've come back and said here's the evidence. We've done testing to the west of the facility, we've done testing in various places and our conclusion is the National Fire Lab is in fact the source of the contaminants in a plume-like formation coming towards Ramsey Meadows."
Lingering concerns over health
Residents who live near the fire lab don't know how long they were exposed to the chemicals and what the impact could be.
'We don't know about the long-term effects.' - J.D. Heffern, chairperson of residents' working group
Scientific information is limited on PFAS, Health Canada says.
But in studies done on animals, "high levels of PFAS have been linked with negative health effects ... including liver damage and impacts on neurological development," the agency's fact sheet says.
In humans, short-term exposure to PFAS at levels slightly above the safety threshold isn't expected to have health effects, according to Health Canada, but the agency does not define what constitutes short- or long-term exposure.
"We don't know about the long-term effects," said Heffern.
A working group for Ramsay Meadows residents is meeting with Health Canada on July 12.
There is no public access to the NRC fire research lab in Mississippi Mills. (Stu Mills/CBC)
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Overview
In the United States, making and using these chemicals in consumer products has greatly decreased during the last 10 years, but people can still be exposed to PFAS because they are still present in the environment.
Scientists have studied how PFAS affect animals’ health but are still trying to understand how exposure to PFAS affects human health. Over the last decade, interest in PFAS has been growing. ATSDR and our state health partners are investigating exposure to PFAS at a number of sites.
PFAS are heat, oil, grease, and water resistant.
The two best known groups of this family of chemicals are the perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs), which include perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, sometimes called C8), and the perfluorosulfonates (PFSAs), which include perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS).
PFCAs and PFSAs do not break down easily in the environment. They also bioaccumulate, or build up, in the blood and organs of exposed humans and animals and remain there for extended periods of time.
Some PFAS are precursors to PFCAs and PFSAs and can break down to those chemicals in the body or the environment.
The largest manufacturer of PFOS voluntarily stopped producing it in 2002. However, other countries still produce PFOS, and it can be imported into the United States in limited quantities.
In 2006, EPA and major companies in the PFAS industry launched the 2010/2015 PFOA Stewardship Program. Companies participating in the program are working to stop producing PFOA and related chemicals by 2015. These companies include Arkema, Asahi, BASF Corporation (successor to Ciba), Clariant, Daikin, 3M/Dyneon, DuPont, and Solvay Solexis.
List of Perfluorosulfonates and Perfluorocarboxylic Acids and Their Abbreviations
|
|||
Chemical
|
Abbreviation
|
Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number (CAS No.)
|
Chemical Formula
|
| Perfluorosulfonates (PFSAs) | |||
| Perfluorobutane sulfonate |
PFBuS
|
375-73-5
|
C4HF9O3S
|
| Perfluorodecane sulfonate |
PFDS
|
335-77-3
|
C10HF21O3S
|
| Perfluoroheptane sulfonate |
PFHpS
|
375-92-8
|
C7HF15O3S
|
| Perfluorohexane sulfonate |
PFHxS
|
432-50-7
|
C6HF13O3S
|
| Perfluorooctane sulfonate |
PFOS
|
1763-23-1
|
C8HF17O3S
|
| Perfluorooctanesulfonamide |
PFOSA
|
754-91-6
|
C8H2F17NO2S
|
| Perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs) | |||
| Perfluorobutanoic acid |
PFBA
|
375-22-4
|
C4HF7O2
|
| Perfluorodecanoic acid |
PFDA
|
335-76-2
|
C10HF19O2
|
| Perfluorododecanoic acid |
PFDoA
|
307-55-1
|
C12HF23O2
|
| Perfluoroheptanoic acid |
PFHpA
|
375-85-9
|
C7HF13O2
|
| Perfluorohexanoic acid |
PFHxA
|
307-24-4
|
C6HF11O2
|
| Perfluorononanoic acid |
PFNA
|
375-95-1
|
C9HF17O2
|
| Perfluorooctanoic acid |
PFOA
|
335-67-1
|
C 8HF15O2
|
| Perfluoroundecanoic acid |
PFUA
|
2058-94-8
|
C11HF21O2
|