EPA Issues Final Lifetime Health Advisories for PFOA and PFOS
On May 25, 2016 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its final Lifetime Health Advisories (HAs) for the compounds perflourooctanoic acid, otherwise known as PFOA, and perflourooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, lowering the health advisory concentrations for these chemicals to the part per trillion level – a move that may be related to the intense litigation scrutiny that these chemicals are currently undergoing.
PFOA and PFOS are part of a large group of chemicals known as perflourinated chemicals (PFCs). PFCs are used in the manufacture of common household products such as carpeting, clothing, furniture fabrics, food packaging, and cookware. PFCs are employed in these products because of their resistance to water, grease, and stains. They are also used in firefighting chemicals at airfields.
PFCs are extremely persistent and very resistant to typical environmental degradation processes due to their carbon–fluorine bonds, among the strongest found in organic chemistry. They are found in environmental media worldwide, including finished drinking water, surface water, groundwater, air, sludge, soils, sediments, outdoor and indoor dust, biota, and polar ice caps.
PFOA cannot be removed from drinking water by standard treatment processes such as coagulation, sand filtration, sedimentation, ozonation, or chlorination, but can be removed by activated carbon.
Sources of exposure to PFOA and/or its precursors include drinking water, food, migration from food packaging into food, treated fabrics (carpets, upholstery, and clothing), house dust, use of protective sprays sold as consumer products, ski waxes, and inhalation of indoor and outdoor air. Migration into food from nonstick (Teflon-coated) cookware is not considered to be a significant exposure source. Occupational exposure is believed to occur primarily through inhalation.
PFOA differs in several important ways from other well-studied drinking water contaminants. For example, it is very resistant to degradation in the environment and thus persists long periods of time. Unlike other persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic organic compounds that are fat soluble and for which human exposure primarily occurs through dietary sources such as fish, meat, or dairy products, PFOA is water soluble and contaminates drinking water sources when discharged to the environment.
Even though PFOA is water soluble it has a half-life of several years in humans and ongoing exposure to relatively low levels in drinking water substantially increases total exposure in humans.
EPA has set the Health Advisory for both PFOA and PFOS at 0.07 parts per billion (ppb) within drinking water, which is relatively more restrictive than other common organic compounds regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act. For example, trichloroethylene and benzene – known carcinogens – have a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 5 ppb; vinyl chloride has an MCL of 2 ppb; and PCBs have a MCL of 0.5 ppb.
EPA’s Health Advisories for PFOA and PFOS are not regulatory standards; rather, they exist to assist federal, state, and local officials as well as water managers to protect public health by providing information on the chemical and physical properties of the chemicals as well as other information on the toxicity, exposure, and occurrence of the chemical in the environment. The Health Advisories issued in May 2016 supersede the draft versions EPA released in February 2014.
First Environment Point of Contact:
Tod Delaney, PhD, PE, President
973.334.0003
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