Microplastics May Join List of Contaminants in Drinking Water

For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed Thursday including microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants in drinking water—a step that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities. Administrator Lee Zeldin said the EPA is responding to Americans worried about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. The gesture also hands 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 AP reports.

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. "I can't think of an issue that hits closer to home for American families than the safety of their drinking water," Zeldin said at EPA headquarters. Studies have looked at the prevalence of microplastics in drinking water and in people's hearts, brains, and testicles. Doctors and scientists are still assessing 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 what's 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 of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Nevertheless, 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.