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EPA moves to roll back PFAS standards. How that could impact Michigan
More PFAS compounds could be allowed in Michigan drinking water after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday it plans to rescind and delay federal standards for some of the pollutants.
Critics worry the rollbacks of federal standards will impact cleanup projects at Camp Grayling and the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base, where military activities released PFAS compounds that have moved into waterways and people’s drinking water wells.
Grayling residents are worried that “all these commitments by the U.S. Army are going to be abandoned because the Trump administration rolled back these drinking water standards,” said U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly. “Same thing with Oscoda with the U.S. Air Force.”
PFAS are man-made compounds that are used to make products stainproof, waterproof, non-stick and fire resistant. They don’t break down in the environment. There are thousands of PFAS compounds. Some pose health issues such as an increased risk of cancer or reduced immune system functioning.
Michigan has nearly 400 sites with known or suspected PFAS pollution, according to a state database.
More: Michigan issues hundreds of new warnings about pollution in fish
EPA changes PFAS water standards
The EPA on Monday proposed to rescind its regulations on four PFAS compounds in drinking water: PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and a mixture of three compounds. It also will allow water utilities to request an extension of the deadline to comply with standards for two other compounds, PFOA and PFOS, by two years to 2031.
The standards for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and the mixture were challenged by the chemical industry, which sued after the rules were enacted in 2024. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Monday claimed the Biden administration “cut corners” and failed to follow Safe Drinking Water Act requirements when creating the regulations in 2024.
In response to the EPA’s reasoning that the rule change was proving hard to defend in court, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, an Ann Arbor Democrat, said that “when people’s health is at stake, you don’t let lawyers screw it up.”
Dingell and GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania sent a bipartisan letter Wednesday to Zeldin urging the EPA to reconsider the shift due to its potential for “erosion” of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“PFAS contamination is a real and urgent public health crisis across our country, and this rollback only serves to undermine the core purpose of SDWA to ensure communities have access to safe drinking water,” they wrote.
“… Rolling back drinking water standards for PFAS will further the existing public health crisis our communities are already facing due to these forever chemicals.”
Zeldin announced the changes alongside Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Monday. In addition to removing standards for some compounds, the agency will give nearly $1 billion to states for addressing PFAS in drinking water and is “highlighting” PFAS treatment and destruction technologies, the EPA said in a press release Monday.
The EPA will provide $22 million in grant funding to Michigan communities, drinking water utilities and private well owners for testing, planning and infrastructure projects to address PFAS and other pollutants, the agency announced Tuesday.
Michigan standards to remain in place
Michigan enacted its own drinking water standards for seven PFAS compounds in 2020. Those will remain in place despite the changes at the federal level, said Scott Dean, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy spokesman.
The state standards generally are more lax than the federal ones enacted in 2024. For example, Michigan’s standards allow PFOS at a concentration of 16 parts per trillion, while the 2024 federal standards are stricter, allowing only a maximum concentration of 4 parts per trillion.
Michigan water utilities still will have to meet PFAS standards, but they will be held to the state standards that are less strict than the federal ones Zeldin is working to toss.
More: Michigan utilities ‘ahead’ in meeting EPA’s new PFAS regulations for drinking water
Michigan has been proactive in trying to find PFAS pollution, said Cheryl Murphy, director of Michigan State University’s Center for PFAS Research. Residents in states that are not proactive rely on federal standards to keep them safe, she said.
“(PFAS) are just not going to go away whether you regulate them now or later,” Murphy said. “If we can be more proactive now, it prevents more of them from getting into the system.”
How PFAS rollbacks could impact Grayling, Oscoda
Slotkin lamented the EPA’s rollback of the Biden-era federal standards as a “real problem” for Grayling and Oscoda because the military has affirmed in testimony to Congress that it won’t clean up the contaminants to Michigan’s higher PFAS standards.
“It’s why we pushed so hard to change those federal standards, because the communities that are most impacted by PFAS are all because of military contamination,” said Slotkin, a former Pentagon official who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Ray Basile, community co-chair of the Camp Grayling Restoration Advisory Board, said military officials told the board Tuesday their municipal water project would not be impacted by the EPA’s planned rollback.
Dean, EGLE spokesman, said the cleanup work at military sites will meet state standards. He said the military will comply with “all applicable and appropriate requirements.”
The PFAS rollbacks announced Monday could delay the military’s work, said Tony Spaniola, an attorney and co-chair of the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network. The military is responsible for investigating and cleaning up the pollution at Wurtsmith and Camp Grayling under the federal Comprehensive, Environmental Restoration, Compensation, and Liability Act. That process takes a long time — already 16 years at Wurtsmith with an estimated 10 to go, Spaniola said.
The EPA may comply with state PFAS standards by the end of that process, Spaniola said, but it would have had to do the cleanup work much faster to meet federal drinking water standards.
That’s why Spaniola said the EPA’s Monday announcement will have “a very imminent negative impact” in Grayling, where some private wells are contaminated with a PFAS compound that the EPA will no longer regulate for drinking water, PFHxS, which is primarily found in fire-fighting foam.
Oscoda residents impacted by PFAS pollution from the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base also will be impacted, he said, but the issue is less pressing in Oscoda because the community already has extended its municipal water service to provide clean water to people whose wells were contaminated, he said.
“It’s a more imminent impact in Grayling because Grayling has drinking water wells that need immediate attention,” Spaniola said. “(In Oscoda) it’s a question of who is going to pay for the extension of the water lines.”
Military officials are meeting Tuesday with residents of Grayling and Oscoda.
Slotkin said the Army assistant secretary from the Pentagon is going to get an “earful” from the Grayling community on Tuesday night, where residents are “desperately worried” that all the commitments the Army has made on cleaning up the drinking water, digging new wells and other efforts won’t get grandfathered into the Army’s cleanup program.
A representative from the office of U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, did not return a request for comment.
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