EPA moves to designate microplastics and pharmaceuticals as contaminants in drinking water

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed Thursday to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants in drinking water for the first time, a step that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said they are responding to Americans who have worried about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. The gesture also aims to hand a win to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement, which for months has pressured Zeldin to further crack down on environmental contaminants.

The EPA’s Contaminant Candidate List identifies contaminants in drinking water not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The agency is publishing the draft of the sixth version of the list, which opens a 60-day public comment period. It expects to finalize the list by mid-November.

Studies have looked at the prevalence of microplastics in drinking water and in people’s hearts, what it means in terms of human health threats, but say there’s cause for concern. There is also growing worry about pharmaceutical drugs that get into the water supply because humans excrete them and conventional wastewater treatment plants fail to remove them.

The EPA uses the list to prioritize research, funding and regulatory decision making, but rarely moves pollutants off the list to set limits for how much is allowed in public drinking water. The EPA said in March that it will not develop regulations for any of the nine pollutants from the list it most recently examined.

“It’s the beginning of a very long process that routinely ends in nothing,” said Erik Olson, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who works on drinking water protection.

Still, some who are urging the government to do more to stop plastic pollution say the announcement is a good start.

“Including it in the list would be the first step toward eventually regulating microplastics in public water supplies and hopefully this is not the last step,” said Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator who now heads up Beyond Plastics.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College, said that while the EPA is moving in the right direction, if the United States does not rein in the accelerating growth in plastic production, which leads to plastic pollution, it will make little difference. The U.S. is participating in talks on a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution, but strongly opposes limits on plastic production.

Food & Water Watch says the listing is important but it ultimately falls short of their call for monitoring. EPA uses the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule to collect data for contaminants that are suspected to be present in drinking water.

Plastic pollution is part of the MAHA agenda

The joint move from Kennedy and Zeldin comes as activists from Kennedy’s MAHA movement have forged fragile political ties with the EPA but expressed frustration with lack of action on their priorities, including pesticide regulation.

The movement erupted earlier this year over an executive order from President Donald Trump that is aimed in part at boosting the production of a controversial herbicide ingredient known as glyphosate. Kennedy has said he was disappointed by the executive order but sees it as necessary for agricultural stability and national security.

The EPA has teased a forthcoming MAHA agenda that it says will address issues such as forever chemicals, plastic pollution, food quality, Superfund cleanups and lead pipes. In February, EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch told The Associated Press that the agenda was in its “final stages.”

EPA publishes the list every five years

The Safe Drinking Water Act, as amended in 1996, directed the EPA to publish the Contaminant Candidate List every five years. Afterwards, the agency must determine whether to regulate at least five contaminants from the list. In five cycles of the process, the EPA has determined that no regulatory action is appropriate or necessary for most of the contaminants it considered.

Trump has sought fewer environmental rules. In May, the EPA announced plans to rescind limits on some less common “forever chemicals” in drinking water, roughly a year after the Biden administration finalized the first-ever national standards. The NRDC and other environmental advocates are fighting to keep the entire Biden-era rule in place.

The new draft list includes four contaminant groups — microplastics, pharmaceuticals,  PFAS and disinfection byproducts — as well as 75 chemicals and nine microbes that may be found in drinking water, the EPA said.

___

Associated Press writers Michael Phillis and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.