The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler has announced the EPA’s Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Action Plan.
According to an EPA new release, the plan responds to public interest and input the agency has received over the past year and also represents the first time the EPA has built a multi-media, multi-program, national communication and research plan to address an environmental challenge like PFAS. The plan identifies short-term solutions for addressing these chemicals and strategies that will help provide the tools and technologies states, tribes, and local communities need to provide clean and safe drinking water to their residents and to address PFAS at the source.
“The PFAS Action Plan is the most comprehensive cross-agency plan to address an emerging chemical of concern ever undertaken by EPA,” Wheeler said, according to the EPA release. “For the first time in Agency history, we utilized all of our program offices to construct an all-encompassing plan to help states and local communities address PFAS and protect our nation’s drinking water. We are moving forward with several important actions, including the maximum contaminant level process, that will help affected communities better monitor, detect, and address PFAS."
The Action Plan describes both long-term and short-term actions that the EPA is taking including: drinking water, clean up, enforcement, monitoring, research and risk communications.
These effort will help the EPA and its partners better identify and better understand PFAS contaminants generally, clean up current PFAS contamination, prevent future contamination and effectively communicate with the public. The EPA will continue to work with multiple entities including other federal agencies, states, tribes, local governments, water utilities, industry and the public.
For more on the action plan, go here.