New Forever Chemical Rules Could Escalate Water Bills, US Cities Warn

With the EPA’s first-ever regulation of PFAS chemicals in the water supply expected soon, local officials say they need more funding to comply. 

Hastings, Minnesota, is staring down a $69 million price tag for three new treatment plants to remove PFAS chemicals from its water supply, ahead of new US federal regulations limiting the amount of so-called forever chemicals in public drinking water — which could come as early as this month.

For a town of less than 22,000 people with an operation and maintenance budget of $3 million a year for its water system, the project amounts to a “budget buster,” says city administrator Dan Wietecha. Operation and maintenance costs for the new plants could add as much as $1 million to the tab each year.

The costs will likely be passed down to the public, unless the city can obtain funding through other means. “Water rates would essentially double in three years, triple in five years, and continue increasing,” Wietecha says. “So, yeah, we need outside funding. This is just an unrealistic burden to put on our residents and businesses.”

Cities across the US are bracing for costly upgrades to their water systems as the Environmental Protection Agency moves to finalize the first-ever enforceable national drinking water standards for PFAS — or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — a large group of man-made chemicals used for decades in manufacturing and in consumer products.

PFAS chemicals, commonly known as forever chemicals, show up in the environment, in food and water supplies, and in our bodies, and as their moniker suggests, they don’t break down for a long time. Mounting research also links at least some compounds to harmful health effects in humans and animals, including increases in cholesterol levels, suppression of the immune system and cancer.

Between 3,400 and 6,300 public water systems serving a total of 70 to 94 million people could be affected by the new rule, according to the EPA. The agency also estimates that implementation of the new standards could cost local governments and utilities between $772 million and $1.7 billion a year nationwide, though the nonprofit American Water Works Association calculates the annual cost to be closer to $3.8 billion.​​​​​

Locals leaders warn that such a sweeping mandate, without sufficient funding from Congress for its implementation, will financially overburden cities, who are expected to shoulder most of the cost. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law does invest $10 billion in grants and low-interest loans to help communities clean up PFAS pollution and other emerging contaminants in their water supply. And the Justice40 Initiative ensures that a portion of that will benefit disadvantaged communities.

But those funds alone are not enough to cover the cost alongside other rules the EPA is considering, according to a joint letter to the EPA from the National League of Cities, the US Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties. The coalition also argues that the five-year timeline for the funding to become available doesn’t align with EPA’s compliance deadline. They’re asking for more time, more money and a less stringent standard.

Environmental and public health groups, meanwhile, have cheered the upcoming rules as long overdue and are pressing the EPA not to ease the regulation. “We should have acted decades ago to reduce the amount of PFAS in our tap water, and we shouldn't wait another day to make our water safe,” says Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group.

In an email statement to Bloomberg, EPA spokesperson Remmington Belford said the final rule will consider the 120,000-some public comments submitted, and that the agency “looks forward to issuing the final rule after interagency review concludes.”

The EPA has until September to finalize the new rule, though the agency has said it expects the final rule to come out in early 2024. After that, municipalities will have three years to comply, which could involve finding new sources of water or installing specialized treatment facilities.

With many cities already struggling with a backlog of much-needed water infrastructure upgrades, the added cost will likely have to be passed on to the community in the form of higher water bills, local leaders say. Inflation and supply chain issues could make it even more difficult for them to meet the deadline.

“This is a gargantuan, mostly unfunded mandate, no matter how noble the policy outcome is,” says Connor Read, town administrator for Easton, Massachusetts, who was not involved in writing the joint letter but has been sharing best practices for removing PFAS with other cities.

Easton recently constructed three water treatment plants for PFAS at a total cost of $12 million — paid for through bonds, which will then be funded by the community through their water bills. Read estimates that water costs could go up by 20% to 30% each year. In a town whose median household income exceeds $100,000, the increase isn’t a large burden for most residents and businesses. But that won’t be the case in some less affluent cities.

“So having some amount of flexibility for that implementation is important,” says Read. “And — yes, of course — funding.”

Faber says his group has not seen a dramatic rise in water rates from the adoption of enforceable limits in states that already enacted PFAS rules.

The EPA’s new regulation would target six compounds, including two of the most frequently detected ones — PFOS and PFOA — and cap their maximum contaminant level in public drinking water to just 4 parts per trillion. That’s the lowest level at which the substances can be reliably detected in the lab, and is lower than the allowable amount from any enforceable state regulation currently in place.

Cities are asking that the EPA consider increasing the threshold to 10 ppt, which would affect fewer systems.

A report from the US Geological Survey estimates that at least 45% of the nation’s tap water, from both public and private wells, is polluted by at least one PFAS chemical. Pollution is also more likely to affect water systems that serve higher proportions of Black and Hispanic residents, according to a separate study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Silent Spring Institute.

“Drinking water treatment plants typically do not have the infrastructure to remove PFAS,” says Kelly Smalling, an environmental organic chemist with USGS who led the agency's latest PFAS report. “There have been some new technologies designed in hopes of retrofitting drinking water treatment plants that have the potential to destroy PFAS, but there's nothing out there that will take it out of the system. That's not how they're designed; they're designed to remove waterborne pathogens.”

Absent federal standards, PFAS is currently monitored by a patchwork of local regulations. Only 10 states have enforceable limits, and more than a dozen have set various guidance levels, notification levels and health advisories. That means some cities may already be familiar with the process of treating PFAS — which can be a lengthy process involving multiple feasibility, design and engineering studies, as well cost-benefit analysis and construction of new plants — while others may be starting from scratch. (It took Easton four years from learning about the presence of PFAS to completing its facilities, according to Read.)

Some cities and water utilities are also awaiting settlement from chemical firms and manufacturers they say are responsible for leaking PFAS into the environment, and therefore should shoulder the burden of removing it: Last year, DuPont and its related companies agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle claims from public water systems of PFAS contamination in drinking water, while 3M reached a $10.3 billion settlement. Even so, some cities remain doubtful their share of the settlement is enough to cover the cost of treatment, while several others are simply not entitled to the payout.

In Hastings, Wietecha says they are exhausting all local and state options to fund new treatment plants, and applying for federal grants to fill in any gaps. The city is also exploring whether potential sources of contamination can foot the bill. That could include nearby landfills, or manufacturing firms like 3M.

Read more: Cancer-linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

Wietecha is optimistic that the city will eventually be able to secure the necessary funding. But with the EPA regulation just months or weeks away from being finalized, he’s concerned they could run out of time.

“We're shovel ready,” he says. The project would take at least three years to complete.

But if pinning down the funding sources takes another year or two, “the whole timeline shoves out later,” he adds. “We've got an issue that we need to begin addressing now.”

Source: Bloomberg‍