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THREAD: So the @EPA has come out with its "First-Ever Comprehensive Nationwide PFAS Action Plan," concerning those very nasty and ubiquitous Teflon chemicals, and—SPOILER—it's a nothingburger /1 motherjones.com/food/2019/02/e…
Key q1 is whether EPA will use regulatory might to keep them out of drinking water. It's been dithering 20 years—yes, since before Trump handed EPA to lobbyists—but pressure has been mounting. The new plan punts—decision "by the end of the year."/2 epa.gov/newsreleases/e…
Q2 is whether the EPA will stick to its now-voluntary 70 parts per trillion standard. Last year, ATSDR—part of the Department of Health and Human Services—found the current standard way too high: should be 7 and 11 ppt for the two main PFAS chems/3 atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp…
At the press conference, Wheeler declared 70 ppt a "safe level for drinking water," despite the ATSDR's finding, reports the fantastic enviro-health writer @MariahCBlake /4
Mariah also points to a 2015 Harvard study suggesting that the safe level is actually, gulp, 1 ppt /5
As I show here, the EPA's own scientists, working with USGS, took samples from 25 drinking-water treatment plants across the US—and found them in all 25—at levels that exceed what above Harvard study says is safe. New study quietly released days ago /6 motherjones.com/food/2019/02/e…
That study is below. Is your city one of the sites they looked at? Hard to say—they kept the drinking-water treatment plants confidential 7/ sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Read this thread by @RobAllenHF, mayor of a New York town contaminated by these chems 8/
And always, always read @MariahCBlake fin/
