Lawmakers and health experts hope stronger chemical regulations come from the Biden administration. But they say the EPA could already do more.
By Lauren Berryman
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle raised concerns at a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday about the health impacts of contaminated drinking water, particularly by chemicals infiltrating groundwater.
The 4,500 residents of Pittsboro, North Carolina are no strangers to these chemicals. Chris Kennedy, the town manager, hears concerns from residents but said he needs more help to remove the hazard from the town’s water supply.
“My residents are afraid of our drinking water,” Kennedy testified before the Transportation Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. This contamination comes downstream from Burlington, North Carolina and infiltrates the Haw River. The town of Pittsboro, rather than Burlington, faces health consequences.
A study conducted by Harvard University researchers in 2016 found 6 million Americans drank water from sources contaminated with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Early research also shows possible health threats from 1,4-dioxane in waterways, including the Haw River.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found PFAS, commonly called “forever chemicals” due to their accumulation in the body, can cause high cholesterol levels, low birth weight, hormonal changes and cancer.
Elaine Chiosso is the executive director at Haw River Assembly, a nonprofit group aiming to protect the Haw River, promote conservation and prevent pollution. Chiosso lives in the neighboring town of Chatham County, North Carolina and gets her drinking water from a well. But when she visits Pittsboro, she said she avoids drinking tap water.
“What really upsets me is all the schools that are in Pittsboro,” Chiosso said, where children are drinking tap water. “It’s really bad, and we keep bringing this subject up. But nothing has happened as far as I know.”
President Joe Biden’s EPA announced this past June that it is going forward with evaluating the health risks of 10 chemicals, including 1,4-dioxane. This decision comes after former President Trump’s EPA halted investigation into environmental exposures of these chemicals in 2018.
But when Subcommittee Chair Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., asked the witnesses whether they thought Congress and EPA were doing enough to protect the health of Americans, all six responded, “No.”
“Congress should require the federal government to develop and maintain a priority list of newly identified harmful chemicals for use by federal and state water monitoring programs,” testified Elizabeth Southerland, former director of science and technology at the EPA Office of Water.
Lawmakers and health experts said EPA’s actions are not enough. They also expressed the importance of testing chemicals before they are approved to prevent possible exposure.
Ranking Member David Rouzer representing North Carolina hopes the chemical approval process changes to benefit public health and the environment. “We should think about the possible effects of substances before they become common in our lives and the products we use which become common in our environment,” he said during the hearing.
The witnesses agreed prevention is key to solving this public health crisis affecting millions of Americans.
“We have a failure of regulatory oversight,” testified Katie Huffling, executive director at the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, a group aiming to promote health policy through research. “When chemicals are pulled from the market only after harm has occurred, our children and families are unwittingly being used as human experiments.”
Those seeing the effects of this crisis firsthand, like Chiosso from North Carolina, agree officials need to place stricter regulations on industrial and household chemicals before they hit the market.
“We need to see national standards for these chemicals. We don’t want to see a level that’s maybe good enough,” Chiosso said in an interview. “We’d like to see actual standards, not guidance. Guidance is not enforcement.”
Lauren Berryman 