Trump EPA to keep strict 'forever chemical' limits but delay deadline

Federal regulators said Wednesday they would maintain strict limits for two toxic "forever chemicals" in drinking water that were established last year under a different president but would delay a compliance deadline by two years.

The delay is among several changes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it plans to unveil later this year to soften the regulation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — a group of thousands of synthetic chemicals commonly known as PFAS. The agency aims to finalize the changes in spring 2026.

The EPA under President Joe Biden set the limits last year on six of the chemicals and indicated two of them are so harmful that public water supplies should aim to eliminate them completely from treated drinking water.

Those two — PFOA and PFOS — are subject to concentration limits of 4 parts per trillion. That is about 2,500 times stricter than the safety threshold for lead, a potent neurotoxin.

About a dozen public water supplies in Iowa exceed those limits, according to state data. Hundreds more are awaiting tests.

The chemicals are pervasive. They have been used for decades to make common consumer products that repel water and are stain resistant. And they persist indefinitely in the environment, which is the source of their "forever" nickname.

Research has linked them to cancers and other health ailments. The vast majority of people in the United States are believed to have detectable concentrations of the chemicals in their blood.

Costs spurred the changes

The anticipated cost to comply with the new regulations imposed last year was expected to total billions of dollars.

Water suppliers with unacceptable PFAS contaminations have the option to install treatment systems — which have large up-front costs and ongoing expenses — or to find alternative sources of uncontaminated water.

In 2023, 3M Company agreed to pay more than $800,000 for two new wells for Camanche, an Eastern Iowa town of about 4,500. It lies across the Mississippi River from a 3M site that produced PFAS chemicals that were found in elevated concentrations in the town's drinking water.

Other cities might not have an identifiable culprit that can be held liable for their contaminations. The EPA's proposed extension of the compliance deadline to 2031 is meant to give those water suppliers more time to find a solution.

"This will support water systems across the country, including small systems in rural communities, as they work to address these contaminants," Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, said in a prepared statement Wednesday.

The agency said it will "establish a federal exemption framework" but did not elaborate.

Elimination of other chemical limits will have little effect on Iowa

While the EPA under President Donald Trump plans to keep the strict limits for PFOA and PFOS, it will eliminate less-strict limits for four other chemicals, pending a reconsideration of them "to ensure that the determinations and any resulting drinking water regulation follow the legal process laid out in the Safe Drinking Water Act."

That will have little effect on Iowa's water supplies, said Corey McCoid, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources supervisor who oversees water supply compliance.

That's because water supplies that are contaminated by the other four chemicals also have elevated concentrations of PFOA and PFOS and would need to install treatment systems or find other water sources regardless.

"Generally, in Iowa, the solution is going to be a new source — a new, deeper well," McCoid said.

Despite the proposed enforcement delay, the DNR will keep to its plan to test all public water supplies in Iowa by the end of next year, he said.

The EPA said it plans to solicit more input from smaller water supplies before it proposes a rule change later this year.

Iowa cities that have PFAS contaminations that exceed the federal limits include Burlington, Central City, Muscatine, Osage, Sioux City, Tama and Waverly, according to recent tests. Other cities that draw water from the Mississippi River have, at times, also exceeded the limits.

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