As a result, complementary and precautionary approaches to managing PFAS are being explored. With more than 4,700 known PFAS, undertaking substance-by-substance risk assessments and comprehensive environmental monitoring to understand exposure would be an extremely lengthy and resource-intensive process. and the World Health Organization (WHO) has a PFAS Project Lab and the European Union (EU) has taken an approach similar to that in the U.S. Scrutiny over PFAs is not unique to the U.S. Limited existing uses of PFOA-related chemicals, including as a component of anti-reflective coatings in the production of semiconductors, were excluded from the regulations (U.S. A Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) issued in January 2015, further ensures that EPA review any effort to reintroduce the chemical into the marketplace. While PFAS is now included in EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Those levels are: 0.004 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA, 0.02 ppt for PFOS, 10 ppt for GenX chemicals, and 2,000 ppt for PFBS.” These values are orders of magnitude lower than the 2016 interim updated Health Advisories for PFOA and PFOS which were both set at 70 ppt.Īt the “invitation” of the EPA in 2006, the leading PFAS manufacturers agreed to phase out manufacturing PFOA and PFOA and most have already phased the products out. These interim health advisories will remain in place until EPA establishes a National Primary Drinking Water Regulation in the Fall of 2022.ĮPA’s Health Advisories identify concentrations of chemicals in drinking water at or below which adverse health effects are not anticipated to occur.
The new advisory levels are based on newly gathered data which extrapolate lifetime exposure and suggest potential negative health effects that may occur at certain concentrations in water. GenX is a class of products designed as a replacement for PFOA and PFOS.
In addition to the interim health advisories, EPA issued Final Health Advisories for PFAS known as “GenX chemicals”. EPA also announced $1 Billion in related infrastructure spending related to PFAS. On Jthe Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued Interim Health Advisories (and a couple Final Health Advisories) replacing those issued in 2016 regarding PFAS setting levels that were not detectable when these chemical compounds were developed. EPA’s March 2022 TRI data observed that the low reporting data was mostly manufacturers reporting hazardous waste and that reporting should increase with the roll-back of the Trump era de minimis exemption from PFAS. Pursuant to the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 EPA collects and publishes Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data and, on July 29, 2021, EPA published preliminary TRI data about chemical releases, chemical waste management, and pollution which included the first-ever reporting on PFAS. But the ramparts are not immune from aerial bombardment from Congress or administrative agency action, nor are they immune from Courts employing novel theories extrapolating on decades old concepts of market share and alternative liability theories. Historically, the answer for fungible and ubiquitous products is that market share, or marketplace attenuation, renders identifying potentially responsible parties incapable of proof thus shielding the downstream market from liability. From a risk perspective, the question becomes whether at the intersection of science and law, liability also migrates downstream in the vertical commercial market place of distributors and end users, where natural attenuation renders identifying parties nearly impossible and damages proportionately less capable of allocation. Yet science evolves and the detection level goal posts continually move by orders of magnitude to detect them. Science suggests that persistent chemicals migrate downstream where natural attenuation renders the substance increasingly harmless and more difficult to detect.
Because of the decades of use and exposure what was known and when it was known, will pay a key role either avoiding or allocating potential risk as the legal landscape migrates. While much of the scientific, regulatory, enforcement and litigation focus is on the upstream manufacturers and suppliers of PFAS compounds, downstream suppliers, processors, distributors and end users are increasingly coming on the legislative, administrative, judicial and media radar. Investigation of Per- and Polyflouroalkyl (PFAS) in US Food Products
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