[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: "DOD giving safe water only to areas with PFAS three times higher than EPA limit"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Toxic mess: DOD giving safe water only to areas with PFAS three times higher than EPA limit 
Unclear timeline could leave many households at risk from ‘forever chemicals’

Environmental Working Group 
September 9, 2024

WASHINGTON – The Defense Department is under fire for a new memo revealing it will provide clean drinking water only to communities polluted by the toxic “forever chemicals” at levels much higher than new federal limits. 

To qualify for safer water, well owners must have a water supply three times more polluted than strict new federal PFAS drinking water limits allow.

The September 3 memo does not explain how or why the military chose the “three times” threshold. The arbitrary decision lets the Pentagon off the hook for supplying as much safe water as it would need to if it followed the stricter limits. So it would not be obligated to give safe drinking water immediately to communities near dozens of bases in at least 21 states, where PFAS have been detected above the federal limits but below the three-times threshold.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2024/09/toxic-mess-dod-giving-safe-water-only-areas-pfas-three-times

To see the September 3, 2024 Defense Department Memorandum, go to
https://www.acq.osd.mil/eie/eer/ecc/pfas/docs/policies/epa-mcl-implementation-memo.pdf

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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