EPA’s Strategic Roadmap to Tackle PFAS Pollution Announced
Since April, the EPA’s Council on PFAS has been working toward a Strategic Roadmap to best address the nation’s PFAS contamination challenges. PFAS are resilient chemicals used widely for their heat resistant and surfactant qualities. On October 18th, the EPA announced the completion of this Roadmap, which presents the major components of the plan, most aspects of which have been anticipated based on announcements EPA has made earlier this year.
Most notably, the Roadmap commits to:
- A Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) hazardous substance designation for PFAS,
- The creation of national enforceable drinking water limits under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), and
- Rulemaking for Effluent Guideline Limitations under the Clean Water Act (CWA) for nine industrial categories for PFAS.
In addition, the EPA announced that it will move forward with collecting data from manufacturers whose products contain PFAS, which we documented in an earlier blog article that Apex published June 15th.
The EPA is expected to act swiftly to progress this plan. Their plans to engage stakeholders in communities and at various levels of government is part of Biden’s Build Back Better agenda which earmarks $10 billion in funding to address PFAS contamination. National webinars will be held by EPA on October 26th and November 2nd and will be hosted by senior policy advisors and technical leaders on the PFAS Council.
For additional information on the Roadmap and for other PFAS tools and resources you can visit https://www.epa.gov/pfas.
Apex Associated Press (Apex AP) represents contributions from various authors within the Apex professional community.
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