US EPA turns down requests for more PFAS toxicity testing

December 30, 2021

Read the full article by Cheryl Hogue (C&EN)

"The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has deferred or turned down advocacy groups’ requests to require Chemours to conduct toxicity tests on dozens of fluorochemicals found in North Carolina drinking water supplies. The agency has already required or will require testing of 9 of the 54 compounds.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), traced to a Chemours plant outside of Fayetteville, taint the Cape Fear River and wells that supply water for hundreds of thousands of people. Several of these compounds have been found in the blood of people who drank that water. But the health effects of this exposure remain unclear due to lack of toxicity data for the substances.

The EPA announced Dec. 28 that it was granting a petition from six North Carolina advocacy groups that sought testing of 54 fluorochemicals associated with Chemours’s Fayetteville operation. But the actions the agency indicated it will take in response fail to go beyond the EPA’s October 2021 strategy for testing PFAS, say petitioners from the Center for Environmental Health, Cape Fear River Watch, Clean Cape Fear, Democracy Green, North Carolina Black Alliance, and Toxic Free NC."