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forever chemicals
US Plastics Industry Dumps Almost Half a Billion Gallons of Wastewater Daily
"Plastics plants are poisoning our waters and contaminating our bodies—and EPA needs to do its job and protect our waterways and downstream communities," said one watchdog leader.
Nov 14, 2024
Amid fears over President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a government watchdog on Thursday called out the EPA for letting the plastics industry pollute U.S. waterways with about half a billion gallons of wastewater every day.
The new report—Plastic's Toxic River: EPA's Failure to Regulate the Petrochemical Plants That Make Plastic—is based on an Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) analysis of records for "70 petrochemical plants that manufacture the most common plastics and their primary chemical ingredients and discharge wastewater directly into rivers, lakes, and other water bodies."
The publication provides just a snapshot of the industry's pollution of U.S. waters. The group focused on plants "that make raw or pure plastics, sometimes referred to as resins, pellets, or nurdles, that are eventually turned into plastic products, like plastic bottles," and did not examine oil refineries or facilities that only make the end-use or consumer products.
"Federal regulations on the wastewater from plastics manufacturing plants have not been updated in over 30 years, are grossly outdated, and fail to protect waterways and downstream communities."
The document explains that "many harmful chemicals released by plastics manufacturers are completely unregulated" by the federal agency, including "dioxins, which are known cancer-causing agents that are highly toxic and persist in the environment; and 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen that EPA scientists recently indicated is threatening drinking water sources."
"Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution discharged from plastics and petrochemical plants—which cause algal blooms and fish-killing low-oxygen zones—are also not controlled by EPA's industrial wastewater rules," it continues. "Although state agencies can set limits for these pollutants in individual wastewater discharge permits, practices vary across states and the limits are inadequate and inconsistent."
EIP found that last year, the 70 plants collectively released nearly 10 million pounds of nitrogen and 1.9 million pounds of phosphorus into waterways. The previous year, eight facilities released an estimated 74,285 pounds of 1,4-dioxane, and 10 of the 17 plants manufacturing polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or its ingredients released 1,374 grams of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds.
The watchdog also found that "although absolute numbers are not known," releases of nurdles into waterways "appear to be common," enforcement of existing regulations is "rare," 58 of 70 plants violated the weak limits "by releasing more pollution than allowed at least once from 2021 to 2023," and 28 facilities are operating with outdated water permits.
"In addition to all these problems, petrochemical plants have been recognized by EPA as potential sources of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, the 'forever chemicals' that persist in waterways and have been linked to increased cancer risk, hormone disruption, reduced ability of the body to fight infections, and reproductive harms, including low birth weight in babies and developmental delays," the publication notes.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists last month published a study on forever chemicals in the journal Science and released an interactive, online map for the Lower 48 states. They estimated that "71 to 95 million people in the conterminous United States potentially rely on groundwater with detectable concentrations of PFAS for their drinking water supplies prior to any treatment."
EIP's new report highlights that "federal regulations on the wastewater from plastics manufacturing plants have not been updated in over 30 years, are grossly outdated, and fail to protect waterways and downstream communities," despite the Clean Water Act's requirement that the EPA "set wastewater discharge limits (called 'effluent limitation guidelines') for harmful pollutants based on the best available technology economically achievable."
"Because treatment technologies improve over time, EPA is supposed to review existing limits every five years and strengthen them when data show treatment options have improved," the document details. "EPA has failed to comply with this mandate, resulting in an excessive amount of potentially dangerous water pollution pouring from plastics manufacturers into America's waterways."
The group's recommendations are to mandate the use of modern wastewater pollution controls, prohibit plastic discharges into waterways, increase accountability at the state and federal level, enhance monitoring requirements in permitting, and improve permit transparency and recordkeeping.
"It is inexcusable that EPA is not following the Clean Water Act and failing to require the multibillion-dollar plastics industry to install modern pollution control systems," EIP executive director Jen Duggan said in a statement. "Plastics plants are poisoning our waters and contaminating our bodies—and EPA needs to do its job and protect our waterways and downstream communities."
Local groups in Lousiana, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia also responded to the report with calls for action.
"Decades of unchecked pollution have transformed the Calcasieu River into a dumping ground for toxic chemicals, with little accountability for the companies responsible," said James Hiatt, executive director of the Louisiana-based For a Better Bayou. "It's unacceptable that these plastics plants, profiting from our natural resources, are allowed to continue to release carcinogens like dioxins into our waterways. We need to hold these polluters accountable—and make them clean up the damage they've caused."
Despite such demands for action, environmental advocates have grave concerns about the EPA's future under Trump, including over his pick of Lee Zeldin, a former Republican member of Congress, to head the agency.
During Trump's first term, his administration rolled back over 100 environmental rules. Although Zeldin, as a congressman, was sometimes "willing and even eager to address environmental problems at home on coastal Long Island," as The New York Timesnoted Tuesday, his voting record and fealty to Trump have green groups fearful for the future.
As Common Dreamsreported earlier this week, Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous declared that choosing a candidate "who opposes efforts to safeguard our clean air and water lays bare Donald Trump's intentions to, once again, sell our health, our communities, our jobs, and our future out to corporate polluters."
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Documents Reveal Plan to Fight PFAS Regulations With Industry-Backed Research
"They're trying to undermine the EPA's science, make it sound like there's uncertainty where there isn't, and make it sound like there's disagreement within the scientific community where there's not," an expert said.
Aug 27, 2024
An industry-friendly research group has set forth plans to bolster legal challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency's PFAS regulations for drinking water by conducting what experts say is biased research, The Guardianreported Tuesday.
Documents obtained by the newspaper show that the Ohio-based research group Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), led by controversial toxicologist Michael Dourson, aims to publish peer-reviewed papers by the end of 2024 that can help industry legal challenges to drinking water rules that the EPA finalized in April.
Dourson, some of whose research funding comes from industry groups, sent a fundraising email in July laying out his plans. "Can we count on your group to make a tax-deductible donation to get our team to publish a set of papers by the end of 2024?" he asked.
TERA organized a conference in October at which a pro-industry plan for challenging the EPA's PFAS regulations was laid out—to attack the statistical methods used by the agency and emphasize scientific uncertainty—a conference document obtained by The Guardian shows.
Current and former EPA experts who viewed the email and the conference document sharply criticized Dourson's approach to research on PFAS, which are a set of roughly 16,000 synthetic compounds linked to cancer and a wide range of other serious health conditions.
Maria Doa, a former EPA risk assessment manager who's now a director at the Environmental Defense Fund, told The Guardian that TERA's plans were "not a valid approach to science."
"They're trying to undermine the EPA's science, make it sound like there's uncertainty where there isn't, and make it sound like there's disagreement within the scientific community where there's not," she said.
Experts compared the effort to undermine PFAS regulations with industry-funded science to similar efforts used by the tobacco industry in decades past.
"This is out of the playbook and it's a lot of the same quote-unquote scientists and same hired guns," Erik Olson, a director at the National Resources Defense Council, told The Guardian.
Penny Fenner-Crisp, a former EPA water division manager who worked with Dourson, told The Guardian that she was astounded by the straightforward bias on display in the documents.
"In my 22 years spent in three regulatory programs I came to understand the games [the industry] plays, but this one astonished me because it's unusual to be so blatant," she said.
The EPA regulations set a limit of 4 parts per trillion on two of the main types of PFAS, and up to 10 ppt for other types. Gourson, who previously worked for the EPA but has since shifted his approach and, as he puts it, learned to "honor industry's knowledge," has argued that the limits should be far higher. He and other scientists, some of whom have industry ties, published a study in December that supports a higher limit for a main type of PFAS.
The legal challenges to the EPA's water regulations come from water utilities and chemical manufacturers. At least one lawsuit was brought in part by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a lobby group that represents companies such as 3M and DuPont, which developed PFAS in the mid-20th century for use in consumer and industrial products, and reportedly hid knowledge of its toxic impacts and widespread distribution.
In the leaked email, Dourson said his forthcoming papers will be published in the first issue of a new journal that aims to "support" the legal challenges to PFAS regulations.
The stakes of the legal cases against the EPA's water rules are extremely high, and not just because of the direct impact they will have on hundreds of millions of Americans who may already have toxic PFAS in their drinking water. A victory for industry could also discourage further regulation of chemicals in drinking water.
"This is pivotal," Betsy Southerland, a former director of science and technology at the EPA's water division, told The Guardian, speaking about the legal defense of the PFAS rules established in April. "If a court strikes this down… then the EPA will say the bar is too high to ever regulate using the Safe Drinking Water Act."
Southerland toldThe Wall Street Journal in May that Dourson "produces biased science that cherry picks data."
Dourson was named to lead the EPA's chemical safety division in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump but withdrew himself from consideration for the position following criticism over his ties to industry. The New York Times at the time published emails Dourson had exchanged with the ACC that showed a close relationship.
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'Public Health Emergency': Report Calls for Multi-Agency Action to Address PFAS Crisis
"We're at a tipping point, where the next administration must act decisively to avert a public health catastrophe that could define the next decade."
Aug 15, 2024
Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy nonprofit, released a roadmap on Thursday calling for a comprehensive government program to address the PFAS contamination crisis facing the United States.
The EWG roadmap details the agency-by-agency response the group says is needed to deal with the environmental and public health threat posed by the nearly ubiquitous presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are linked to many cancers and other serious health conditions.
EWG's plan involves not just steps that should be taken by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) but also the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the departments of Agriculture, Defense, and Health and Human Services, and several other federal agencies.
Scott Faber, EWG's vice president of government affairs, said in a statement that PFAS contamination was "an unfolding disaster that demands immediate and unprecedented action."
"We're at a tipping point, where the next administration must act decisively to avert a public health catastrophe that could define the next decade," he said.
The contamination crisis from the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS is far from over, despite the Biden-Harris administration’s strides combating PFAS pollution. EWG has identified steps the next administration should take to build on successes so far. https://t.co/BQUUNnUTdI
— EWG (@ewg) August 15, 2024
EWG commended the Biden administration for the steps that it's taken to deal with the PFAS contamination crisis. The White House put forth an eight-agency PFAS plan in October 2021 and has implemented key parts, most notably by setting strict national limits on PFAS in drinking water. That rule, finalized in April, faces legal challenges from industry groups.
PFAS are set of roughly 16,000 synthetic compounds that were developed by chemical companies for use in a wide range of products. They can enter the human body—where, as "forever chemicals," they accumulate in bones and organs—through drinking water, food, the skin, or the air. Most Americans have PFAS in their blood.
Reporting by Sharon Lerner, a ProPublica journalist who previously worked at The Intercept, has indicated that 3M and DuPont, two of the major PFAS producers, knew about the dangers and widespread distribution of PFAS but hid them from the public.
In April, the EPA designated two of the most common PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), as hazardous substances under the Superfund law—another move that EWG celebrated.
"But there's much more that must be done," according to the new roadmap, authored by John Reeder, EWG's vice president of federal affairs.
In the roadmap, Reeder, a former EPA deputy chief of staff, called for the agency to double its budget for PFAS—i.e., increase its funding request to Congress—and crack down on industrial discharges, among many other proposals. He also called on the FDA to ban the use of PFAS in food packaging and establish limits on their use in foods. For the Department of Defense, Reeder's plan includes giving defense communities safe water to drink—at least 100 military sites are known to have contaminated water—and end the use of PFAS in firefighting foam.
Such federal action will likely depend on the results of the presidential and congressional elections. Project 2025, a right-wing policy blueprint for a Republican administration, proposes deregulation of PFAS and funding cuts for key EPA functions. Experts inside and outside the agency toldThe Guardian late last month that a victory by Republican nominee Donald Trump would mean PFAS rules would become subject to a great deal of industry influence.
Meanwhile, the scale of the PFAS problem continues to become more clear. Data recently updated by the EPA shows that 7,457 U.S. drinking water locations have PFAS in their supply, putting much of the American population at risk, according to EWG. The EPA has found that there's "no safe level of exposure" to PFOA and PFOS.
"The sheer number of contaminated sites is a red flag that says we are facing a pervasive and devastating crisis," said Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at EWG. "More than 130 million Americans are drinking water tainted with PFAS, putting them at risk of severe health issues. This is no longer just an environmental concern; it's a major public health emergency."
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