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pfas
As Federal Leaders Are Failing on PFAS, States Must Step up—Here’s How
I encourage leaders to look to Maine as a model to follow: Maine has emerged as a national leader in addressing PFAS contamination through comprehensive state-level initiatives that demonstrate the urgent need for federal action.
May 31, 2025
The Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back critical protections that ensure safe drinking water. These regulations help ensure that our water is free of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” an especially hazardous form of industrial chemicals that linger in the environment indefinitely.
PFAS are damaging to human health at even the lowest doses. Exposure to PFAS can contribute to serious illnesses including kidney cancer, liver disease, thyroid disorders, or autoimmune disorders. There are no current treatments to remove PFAS from the body.
Despite the evidence of these dire health risks, the administration is shirking their responsibility to protect people across the country from PFAS exposure.
At the end of the day, we should all be able to agree that the health and safety of our communities starts with clean water and safe food, and make this work a priority.
Now, it is more urgent than ever for state and local leaders to step up, fill this gap, and protect their communities from PFAS exposure. It’s a massive undertaking, but fortunately, there is a clear path forward.
Advocates and experts across the country have already begun to chart the way—because they’ve had to. Even though prior PFAS regulations were important, they’ve never been enough to fully protect our water, our land, or our bodies from pollution.
I encourage leaders to look to Maine as a model to follow: Maine has emerged as a national leader in addressing PFAS contamination through comprehensive state-level initiatives that demonstrate the urgent need for federal action. We're the first state to require manufacturers to report intentionally added forever chemicals in products. Perhaps most significantly, the state is working toward the elimination of PFAS from consumer products, addressing the problem at its source rather than merely managing its consequences. Maine's regulatory approach has implemented some of the nation's most protective drinking water standards for PFAS compounds, recognizing that even minute concentrations pose serious health risks.
My own work in Maine has focused on advancing programs to monitor, test, and limit PFAS in our water and food supply. Over the years, we’ve realized that establishing strong drinking water standards is just the beginning of ridding our communities of PFAS. Now, we’re tackling contamination in the food supply by working with farmers to test their land and crops and make the technical changes necessary to produce safe crops and livestock.
Our state's PFAS Advisory Fund provides critical support to farmers whose agricultural operations have been devastated by PFAS contamination, primarily through the historical application of contaminated biosolids to farmland. Complementing this effort, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) established their PFAS Emergency Relief Fund to offer direct assistance to organic producers facing immediate financial hardship from crop losses and farm closures due to contamination.
Maine has also taken the bold step of banning the land application of sludge, eliminating a primary pathway for PFAS contamination of agricultural soils.
These comprehensive regulations serve multiple critical purposes: protecting the health of farmers who work the land and face direct exposure to contaminated soils, safeguarding consumers with safe food, and preserving our most treasured and irreplaceable resources—soil and water.
I urge more local leaders to champion these initiatives with your own representatives. Every town and state has a unique political landscape, and some of these programs might not advance easily. We need new innovation and lots of legwork to develop and advance the right solutions for everyone. But at the end of the day, we should all be able to agree that the health and safety of our communities starts with clean water and safe food, and make this work a priority.
Where the federal government won’t protect us, we will take action ourselves—by raising awareness, pushing for strong state-level responses, and stopping PFAS contamination before it causes further harm.
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Trump EPA Guts Rules Against Toxic Forever Chemicals in Drinking Water
"Once again, the Trump administration has demonstrated that its priority is bending to corporate interests, not protecting the safety and well-being of everyday people," said one critic.
May 14, 2025
Bowing to industry pressure, the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to roll back limits on so-called "forever chemicals" in drinking water—a move that critics said belies President Donald Trump's dubious pledge to "ensure that America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet."
In a misleading announcement, the EPA said Wednesday that it will "keep maximum contaminant levels" (MCLs) for two per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—PFOA and PFOS—as part of an effort to "provide regulatory flexibility and holistically address these contaminants in drinking water."
However, the EPA plans to scrap MCLs for four other forever chemicals: PFNA, PFHxS, GenX, and PFBS.
"These four chemicals are the ones currently in use because industry developed them to replace PFOA and PFOS, so they are the chemicals most likely to increase contamination in the future," explained former senior EPA water official Betsy Southerland in a statement issued by the Environmental Protection Network on Wednesday.
"It is incredibly inefficient to regulate them years after the treatment has been installed only for PFOA and PFOS," Southerland added. "[EPA Administrator Lee] Zeldin's announcement on PFAS drinking water standards ensures that America's children will be drinking PFAS for another decade while he slows drinking water and wastewater PFAS treatment for years."
The EPA just announced its decision on PFAS, toxic forever chemicals, that reverses course on most of a crucial public health rule from just last year. We need more action, not less, to protect Americans from PFAS.
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— NRDC (@nrdc.org) May 14, 2025 at 7:34 AM
The EPA also pushed back the deadline for compliance with a Biden administration rule finalized last year aimed at ensuring polluters pay forever chemical cleanup costs, from 2029 to 2031. Earlier this week, the EPA said it is delaying a key PFAS reporting rule by one year.
"This is a betrayal of public health at the highest level," Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook said in response to Wednesday's announcement. "You can't make America healthy while allowing toxic chemicals to flow freely from our taps. The EPA is caving to chemical industry lobbyists and pressure by the water utilities, and in doing so, it's sentencing millions of Americans to drink contaminated water for years to come."
"The cost of PFAS pollution will fall on ordinary people, who will pay in the form of polluted water and more sickness, more suffering, and more deaths from PFAS-related diseases," Cook added.
"Zeldin's announcement on PFAS drinking water standards ensures that America's children will be drinking PFAS for another decade."
Approximately half of the U.S. population is drinking PFAS-contaminated water, "including as many as 105 million whose water violates the new standards," according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which added that "the EPA has known for decades that PFAS endangers human health, including kidney and testicular cancer, liver damage, and harm to the nervous and reproductive systems."
Forever chemicals—so called because some of them take up to 1,000 years to break down in the environment—have myriad uses, from nonstick cookware to waterproof clothing to firefighting foam. Increasing use of forever chemicals has resulted in the detection of PFAS in the blood of nearly every person in the United States and around the world.
"The PFAS contamination crisis is much larger than just two chemicals, and there is increasing evidence that other PFAS chemicals that pollute water harm health," Cook said. "Eliminating all PFAS chemicals from drinking water is an urgent public health priority."
"If this administration is serious about making America healthier, it needs to prove it by stopping PFAS from contaminating our drinking water," he added.
NRDC senior strategic director of health Erik Olson said Wednesday that "with a stroke of the pen, the EPA is making a mockery of the Trump administration's promise to deliver clean water for Americans."
"With this action, the EPA is making clear that it's willing to ignore Americans who just want to turn on their kitchen taps and have clean, safe water," Olson asserted. "The EPA's plan to retain but delay standards for two legacy forever chemicals may offer modest consolation to some, but throwing out protections against four others will be devastating."
"The law is very clear that the EPA can't repeal or weaken the drinking water standard. This action is not only harmful, it's illegal," Olson stressed. The Safe Drinking Water Act contains an "anti-backsliding" provision prohibiting the EPA from repealing or weakening the standard.
"With a stroke of the pen, the EPA is making a mockery of the Trump administration's promise to deliver clean water for Americans."
Kelly Moser, senior attorney and leader of the Water Program at the Southern Environmental Law Center—which successfully sued the industrial chemicals giant Chemours to stop PFAS contamination in North Carolina—said Wednesday that "when this administration talks about deregulation, this is what they mean—allowing toxic chemicals in drinking water at the request of polluters."
"This action also undercuts Administrator Zeldin's acknowledgment of the severe health harms of PFAS; what people need are protections from pollution, not press releases feigning concern," Moser added.
Food & Water Watch water program director Mary Grant said Wednesday that "today's decision is a shameful and dangerous capitulation to industry pressure that will allow continued contamination of our drinking water with toxic PFAS."
"Once again, the Trump administration has demonstrated that its priority is bending to corporate interests, not protecting the safety and well-being of everyday people," Grant continued. "Nothing is safe from Trump's greed-driven agenda—not even our drinking water."
"This will cost lives," she warned.
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2025 Goldman Prize Winners 'Serve as Powerful Reminders of What Is Possible'
"There's so much that worries us, stresses us, outrages us, and keeps us divided," said one foundation leader. "However, for me, these environmental leaders and teachers... are the antidote."
Apr 21, 2025
Seven grassroots Earth defenders from around the world were announced on Monday as the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize winners.
"It's been a tough year for both people and the planet," said Jennifer Goldman Wallis, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, in a statement. "There's so much that worries us, stresses us, outrages us, and keeps us divided. However, for me, these environmental leaders and teachers—and the global environmental community that supports them—are the antidote."
"If we apply the same passion and logic that we use in the protection of our own families to our broader communities and ecosystems, then we will win," she continued. "In these difficult times for environmental activists, these seven individuals serve as powerful reminders of what is possible through determination, resilience, and hope."
Since 1989, the foundation has awarded the annual prize to individuals from the world's six inhabited continental regions "for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk."
Africa: Semia Gharbi of Tunisia
Gharbi, a 57-year-old scientist and environmental educator, led a campaign against a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia that led to the arrest of over 40 people from both countries and stronger European Union export rules.
Asia: Batmunkh Luvsandash of Mongolia
After being born to a nomadic herder family and working as an electrical engineer for construction and mining projects, 81-year-old Luvsandash used his expertise to fight to protect 66,000 acres of Dornogovi province from extractive activities.
Europe: Besjana "Besi" Guri and Olsi Nika of Albania
The efforts of Guri, a 37-year-old who trained as a social worker, and Nika, a 39-year-old biologist and aquatic ecologist, to safeguard the Vjosa River from a hydropower dam development led to Albania and Europe's first new national park protecting a wild river and its tributaries.
Islands: Carlos Mallo Molina of the Canary Islands
Mallo Molina, a 36-year-old born in mainland Spain, left his job as a civil engineer specializing in port construction to launch the conservation group Innoceana, which fought to protect the Canary Islands' marine ecosystem from the proposed Fonsalía Port.
North America: Laurene Allen of the United States
Allen, a 62-year-old clinical social worker, campaigned for the closure of the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and continues to fight for cleanup efforts and stricter regulations regarding per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly called "forever chemicals" because they persist in the environment and people's bodies for long periods.
South and Central America: Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari of Peru
Canaquiri Murayari is the 56-year-old president of the Kukama women's organization Asociación de Mujeres Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kanawon, which won a landmark Rights of Nature court ruling that granted legal personhood to the Marañón River.
This year's prize winners are set to be celebrated on Monday at an in-person and livestreamed ceremony in San Francisco, California, at 5:30 pm Pacific Daylight Time.
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