DEQ-CFW_00019673

McCrory administration takes proactive approach to ensure safe drinking water
The federal Environmental Protection Agency today released a health advisory for two federally
unregulated perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) — PFOS and PFOA. The newly announced health
advisory level for these two combined chemicals is 70 parts per trillion for drinking water.
EPA periodically releases health risk assessments as a part of the process to develop new
drinking water regulations and determine the appropriate regulatory level, but EPA is taking the
unusual action to suggest actions be taken by water systems in the absence of regulation and
without any proposed regulatory level.
EPA recently provided states a list of water systems with PFOS or PFOA detection above the
anticipated health -advisory level. The state environmental department has already proactively
contacted the two water systems in the state that the EPA advised would exceed the new health
advisory levels. The systems have been working on a voluntary basis to develop appropriate
response strategies. State officials also advised the water systems to create their own fact sheets
so they would be prepared to explain what they are doing to address this emerging issue once the
details of the EPA announcement were known.
PFCs have been widely used in the U.S., but the primary manufacturers recently phased out
production. PFCs are commonly used in substances such as firefighting foam and were
historically used in the making of such common items as non-stick cookware, stain resistant
carpeting and clothing, and microwave popcorn bags. They are extremely persistent in the
environment and take a long time to degrade. As a result, PFCs get washed into surface water
and seep into groundwater. Once the chemicals make their way into drinking water sources,
typical water treatment processes do not remove them.
The EPA has been evaluating whether to develop a federal drinking water standard for these
emerging contaminants. Many water systems in the country monitored for PFCs between 2013
and 2015 as part of this federal evaluation process. The monitoring showed only 51 detections of
PFCs out of the 7,464 samples from North Carolina public drinking water systems. While PFCs
are currently unregulated contaminants, the state's environmental department is taking the extra
step to work together with water systems in the state in order to ensure public health is protected.
DEQ-CFW-00019673