Health

< EPA flags microplastics, pharmaceuticals as contaminants in drinking water

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The Trump administration is responding to public health concerns about the nation's drinking water. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would place microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants. NPR's Will Stone reports on what that will mean.

WILL STONE, BYLINE: EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin touted the change as a historic step and a win for the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement, which often raises concerns about toxic chemicals and plastic in our food and environment.

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LEE ZELDIN: For too long, Americans have been ignored as they sound the alarm about plastics in their drinking water. That ends today.

STONE: Zeldin says, for the first time, microplastics and pharmaceuticals will appear on what's known as the contaminant candidate list, alongside PFAS and other chemicals.

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ZELDIN: EPA will follow the science. We'll pursue answers, and we'll hold ourselves to the highest standards to protect the health of Americans.

STONE: The agency is required to publish an updated version of this list every five years. Their inclusion on the draft list can set the stage for more research and regulation, but it's no guarantee.

KATHERINE O'BRIEN: I think it's fair to call this theater...

STONE: Katherine O'Brien is with the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice.

O'BRIEN: ...And a distraction from the real harm that these very same agencies are doing to public health by undermining actual legal protections against toxic chemical exposure.

STONE: For example, O'Brien points out the administration has pursued an aggressive agenda of deregulation, including with PFAS in drinking water. But others are more positive. Sherri Mason is a researcher at Gannon University who focuses on plastic pollution in fresh water.

SHERRI MASON: Nothing is ever perfect - you know? - but this is an important first step, and I think we should recognize that.

STONE: Zeldin was joined by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said his agency is launching a $144 million program to research microplastics and how to remove them from the human body. Mary Grant with Food & Water Watch says there is substantive action the administration could take any day on microplastics in addition to what it did today. Her group and a handful of governors have petitioned the EPA to add microplastics to another list that would require microplastics to be monitored in the nation's drinking water. She says the White House is currently reviewing this.

MARY GRANT: So we actually begin collecting the data that we need to understand the scope of the crisis in our drinking water, as well as to begin to move toward actual regulations.

STONE: If the administration doesn't act, though, she says it could be years, maybe a decade, before meaningful regulation takes shape. Will Stone, NPR News.

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