The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing the nation's first-ever drinking water standard around polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) or "forever chemicals." The rule would establish legal enforceable limits for different types of chemicals common in drinking water.
“Communities across this country have suffered far too long from the ever-present threat of PFAS pollution," said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan in a news release. "Through this action, the [EPA] is taking a major step to protect public health from PFAS pollution, leveraging the latest science and complementing state efforts to limit PFAS by proposing to establish legally enforceable levels for six PFAS known to occur in drinking water."
The agency recently designated PFAS as hazardous substances under the Clean Water Act. This new rule puts in place specific limits on how much of a given chemical is safe for consumption, and then mandates public water authorities to monitor for their presence and address contamination where it occurs.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) noted that $10 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act will go toward combating contamination by forever chemicals.
"These dollars will be crucial in providing our municipalities with the resources they will need to comply with these new regulations so that together we can prioritize clean water for our communities," she said.
Environmental activist and actor Mark Ruffalo also championed the new rule.
"My message to polluters is simple: after poisoning your workers and neighbors for decades, it is time to make our public health, not your profits, our top priority," he said. "My message to communities devastated by PFAS pollution is equally simple: help is finally on the way.”
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a new report providing multiple options for how the world can survive and adapt to climate change.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom over the weekend announced that the state has secured a contract with CIVCA to make $30 insulin available to all who need it. He also announced that the state will start manufacturing Naloxone, an emergency medication used to rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
The global bottled water industry is booming, and it's coming at a steep environmental cost, according to the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.
A new gel that helps stop bleeding for both emergency care and surgical procedures in animal medicine is being sought for FDA approval for a human version.
In this photo provided by Henry Danner, Omari Maynard sits with his children, Khari, left, and, Anari, holding a photo of their late mother, Shamony Gibson, at home in the Brooklyn borough of New York on April 9, 2022. Gibson passed away in 2019, two weeks after giving birth to Khari due to a pulmonary embolism. “She wasn’t being heard at all,” said Maynard, an artist who now does speaking engagements as a maternal health advocate.
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a new plan to lower the cap on the amount of harmful "forever chemicals" allowed in drinking water across the country.
