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Using Water Pollution Permits to Keep PFAS out of Drinking Water

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.
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New policy will safeguard Colorado waters from toxic PFAS

On July 14th we won a huge victory when the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission unanimously approved a policy that provides Colorado a clear path forward to address PFAS contamination in surface and ground waters. Despite the serious health impacts from PFAS, there are no federal regulations to control these chemicals in surface water or drinking water, so states around the country have been adopting their own regulations and policies to protect residents.
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PFAS, the “forever chemicals” made simple

In our work at Clean Water Action we throw around a lot of statistics and chemical names which, if you’re not used to hearing them, all sound pretty much like “ethyl-methyl-bad-stuff.” Sometimes that’s really all you need to know: “there’s something bad there – stay away.”

But one group of

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Breaking down the Forever Chemicals –What are PFAS?

We are beginning to understand the wide range of possible health effects from these chemicals, which include several types of cancer, elevated cholesterol, and changes to liver function. Only a few types of PFAS have been thoroughly studied, and the class contains potentially thousands of different iterations.