A new study Found installed technology to remove permanent chemicals from drinking water also double work by removing harmful other materials – including certain types of substances cancer.
this studypublished Thursday in ACS ES & T Water magazine, the Trump administration is Overhaul A rule requires water systems to take action to clean up chemicals in drinking water.
Common and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs), known as Forever Chemicals, are thousands of chemicals that do not decrease in the environment and are associated with many worrying health outcomes, including a variety of cancers, hormonal diseases, and developmental differences. Because they do not decrease, they are uniquely universal: 2023 Research According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 45% of tap water in the United States may contain at least one PFAS chemical.
Last year, the Biden administration finally set a rule Establish The first legal limit in drinking water for PFA, which sets strict restrictions on six different types of PFAS chemicals and requires that water utilities required to clean up drinking water under these restrictions by 2029. explain This would be a reconsideration of four of the six chemicals in the original rule and extend the deadline by two years. Change comes after widespread outcry over water utilities explain The cost of installing a PFAS filtering system will be much more than the initial estimates of the agency.
EPA Press Secretary Brigit Hirsch told Wired in a statement. “This is just a small part of what the agency has done to the PFA during President Trump’s second term to ensure Americans have the cleanest air, land and water.”
Hirsch also stressed that as a standard for the four chemicals reconstituted by EPA, “the result may be stricter requirements.”
Experts say the cost of cleaning PFA can bring other benefits beyond distinguishing eternal chemicals from American water supplies. The authors of the new study – all employees of nonprofits (EWGs) for chemical safety research, for example, technology to get rid of PFA can also filter out many other harmful substances, including some technologies created as by-products of the water treatment process itself.
The study focused on three types of water filtration techniques that have been shown to remove PFA. Sydney Evans, senior analyst at EWG and co-author of the report, said the technologies “are really common, they have been in use for a long time, and they have enough literature to eliminate many of the contaminants.”
Most conventional water disinfection processes in the United States require the addition of chemicals (usually chlorine) to the water. Although this process eliminates harmful pathogens, it cannot leache PFA or other types of contaminants, including heavy metals and elements such as arsenic.
