As EPA rolls back on limits for “forever chemicals” in drinking water, CFPUA says their customers won’t be impacted

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - In an announcement Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it is doing away with limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water, but a water utility service for Wilmington residents say their customers won’t be impacted.

PFAS has been linked to a series of health issues, including various types of cancer. The Biden Administration had previously set the first-ever federal drinking water limits for the chemicals, which were expected to reduce their levels for millions nationwide.

The EPA’s decision, though, discards limits on four types of PFAS, including GenX, while maintaining guidelines around PFOA and PFOS, which are less common.

According to the release, the EPA will rescind the regulations for:

• PFHxS
• PFNA
• HFPO-DA (commonly known as GenX)
• And the Hazard Index mixture of all three plus PFBS

However, despite the rollback, officials with the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) are proud of its Sweeney Water Treatment Plant in Wilmington, which filters out forever chemicals like GenX for nearly 200,000 people.

“We have no plans at all to change the treatment,” a CFPUA spokesperson said.

It’s one of the few utility companies in the country to meet Biden-era mandates for all forever chemicals to be filtered to the lowest detectable level.

“We are definitely leading the game nationally, internationally,” Ben Kearns, water resources manager at the Sweeney Water Treatment Plant, said. “We’re where most utilities that are currently designing their treatment processes to address PFAS in their source water look to be in the next four to five years.”

Other utilities have struggled with the federal deadline to install new filters, and the price tag to do so. That’s one reason why the EPA is dissolving forever chemical limits in drinking water.

However, that won’t impact CFPUA or its customers, with the utility company having already installed filters that cover the gamut of PFAS.

“The filters have consistently removed each of these PFAS compounds to levels at or near non-detection drinking water since they came online in 2022,” a spokesperson with CFPUA continued.

CFPUA is still battling chemical companies to recoup its money spent on the filters, but for them, the upfront cost was worth protecting public health, regardless of what the limit on forever chemicals in drinking water is.

“When we decided on the treatment technology, we knew that technology would catch up to PFAS. We were on the leading edge of it. And now the technology is there,” Kearns said.

CFPUA is the only utility around the Cape Fear region to use special filters to filter out GenX. Water treatment services in other parts of the region, like in Brunswick County, are also working to install them, but it will take some time.

The EPA says they plan to issue the proposed rule this fall and finalize it by next spring.