Two national water utility trade groups, whose members include many of Long Island’s public water providers, have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the EPA’s limit on “forever chemicals” in drinking water established last year.
The suit has been consolidated with one brought by chemical and manufacturing trade groups and one of the largest makers of PFAS, which also seeks to rescind the EPA’s strict limits.
Water suppliers across the nation face estimated annual costs of $1.5 billion to meet the new drinking water standards. But the legal challenges have unnerved health experts and communities that have been heavily affected by contamination from PFAS manufacturing plants and industrial dumping, prompting more than a dozen local and national nonprofit groups, three toxicologists and 17 states, including New York, and the District of Columbia, to submit amicus briefs in support of the regulations.
The concern has escalated since Jan. 20: The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Appeals Court for time to review litigation and the EPA rules set by Biden’s EPA. Environmental health advocates have said that reversing the rule would ensure that millions of people continue to be exposed to chemicals that the EPA has determined to be toxic even in minute amounts.
PFAS — or per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds — are used in everyday household products as well as manufacturing, and have contaminated Long Island’s drinking water. New York established a limit of 10 parts per trillion in drinking water in 2020, but the federal regulation set a much stricter standard of 4 parts per trillion. Biden’s EPA said, when the regulation was finalized, that it “will protect 100 million people from PFAS exposure, prevent tens of thousands of serious illnesses, and save lives.”
The plaintiffs’ briefs claim that the EPA failed to follow long-established procedures in determining its maximum contaminant levels or MCLs, that the agency used a flawed cost-benefit analysis, and that the EPA cannot regulate mixtures of these PFAS chemicals.
The Safe Drinking Water Act “requires regulation of substances one at a time,” according to the brief submitted by PFAS manufacturer Chemours, based in Wilmington, DE.
In an interview, Jeff Szabo, the CEO of the Suffolk County Water Authority, said “the EPA did not follow the proper process” when it established the regulation in April.
“This could set a dangerous precedent for future contaminants or anything else that the EPA wanted to do,” said Szabo, who was vice president of the board of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies when it voted to pursue litigation, and is currently president of the national organization.
Szabo declined to say whether he voted to approve the lawsuit. The Suffolk County Water Authority, the only Long Island water provider that is a member of the Metropolitan Water Agencies, has not taken a public position on the suit.
The majority of Nassau and Suffolk county water suppliers are members of the American Water Works Association, according to a Long Island Water Conference spokesman, though none are named as plaintiffs or filed amicus briefs.
The Nassau Suffolk Water Commissioners’ Association, a conglomerate of 21 local water commissioners, did not respond to a request for comment.
Local and national environmental health advocates have expressed dismay that water suppliers would join with industry groups to oppose clean water regulations.
“We would expect this kind of lawsuit from the chemical industry,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment in Farmingdale. “But it’s despicable that the water suppliers would join in and work to weaken our public health protection laws.”
In early February, the new administration asked the DC Circuit Court of Appeals for 60 days to review the regulation established under Biden, arguing that courts in the past have allowed agencies to “review and, if appropriate, revise their past decisions.” The pause request also said that “judicial resolution” may not be necessary.
EPA spokesman Jeff Landis declined to discuss the suit, the 60-day review or whether the EPA remained committed to the PFAS regulations, “in keeping with a long-standing practice” not to comment “on any current or pending litigation.”
Advocates have expressed concern that the pause may mean that the new EPA will decide not to defend the lawsuit. The Trump administration has already withdrawn Biden’s plan to reduce manufacturers’ discharges of PFAS into U.S. waterways.
The new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, voted in favor of PFAS regulations for drinking water when he represented New York’s first congressional district, from 2015 to 2023. But Zeldin, from Shirley, has promised severe…
Read More: Public water providers challenge strict federal PFAS ‘forever chemical’