National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System

Last week EPA issued a memo detailing how the agency will use its water pollution permitting program to limit discharges of PFAS to rivers, streams, lakes, and other water bodies. As we’ve written before on our blog, the Clean Water Act has many tools that can be used to keep these toxic fluorinated “forever chemicals” out of our water. Benefits include shifting the burden away from drinking water systems and communities to clean-up PFAS and back on to the industries that financially benefit from using these chemicals. This memo is a welcome step, but more urgent action is needed.