As EPA abandons drinking water protections, New York must step in with a precautionary approach

In June 2017, six months into the first Trump administration, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli issued a report on drinking water regulation in New York State. Contamination crises in the Village of Hoosick Falls and City of Newburgh had exposed “significant gaps in protections,” and in response, his office analyzed federal and state roles in drinking water regulation. With EPA planning to deregulate and defund environmental programs, DiNapoli advised NYS to act independently. To this end, he suggested “adoption of a more precautionary approach to regulating contaminants.”

Now, months into a second Trump administration, EPA has announced its intention to roll back recently adopted drinking water standards for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – the very standards that were designed to protect people from the type of drinking water pollution that people in Hoosick Falls and Newburgh experienced. Nor will the administration defend the standards in court. The administration’s 2026 budget eliminated funding for drinking water infrastructure, leaving only 10% as an “offramp.” As if that’s not enough, EPA has restructured its science division to speed up new chemical approvals, a process that doesn’t even require companies to test chemicals for safety before putting them on the market.

In 2017, given anticipated EPA funding cuts, the NYS Comptroller questioned “EPA’s ability to implement the SDWA effectively.” Today, the answer is clearly “no,” and furthermore, the central question seems to be whether EPA’s leadership even has the will to do so.

So what should New York do?

The suggestion put forth eight years ago by Comptroller DiNapoli is still on point: New York State must adopt a precautionary approach to drinking water regulation. The “precautionary principle” means that when pollution and its attendant harms are reasonably likely to occur, regulators step in to prevent damage before it occurs, even if questions remain. Lingering questions must be addressed before a potentially polluting action moves forward. In contrast, our existing environmental laws kick in after damages occur. People who are harmed by pollution must prove it before chemical restrictions are considered. If restrictions are deemed necessary, developing them requires years of extensive data collection and analyses.

Our lack of precaution has given rise to a vast group of chemicals called “emerging contaminants,” a catch-all title covering chemicals that are suspected to be harmful, but whose risks and exposures are not fully defined. Despite what the name suggests, emerging contaminants aren’t necessarily new. For example, PFAS production began in the 1940s, causing pollution on a global scale – with severe impacts in multiple New York communities – before the public even began to learn of the threats.¹

Landfills are time capsules of industrial, commerical, and municipal waste, which release a toxic soup of contaminants as rainwater percolates through them. Modern landfills are required to be lined with impermeable barriers so that leachate does not leak out and pollute neighboring ground- and surface water.²  Instead, the liquid is collected by a network of drainage pipes underneath the landfill. But, despite all the infrastructure to contain and control leachate at landfill sites, the standard practice is to pump it into tanker trucks and haul it to sewage treatment plants, which are not equipped to remove the synthetic chemicals that make leachate dangerous. As a result, they pass through sewage plants into surface waters, including drinking water supplies.

Allowing low levels of polluting chemicals to be dumped into our drinking water is a misguided and unacceptable risk. Some emerging contamiants are bioaccumulative, persistent, and/or harmful in very low doses. PFOA and PFOS, the two best-studied PFAS, are a case in point: EPA’s drinking water standards aim for zero detectable amounts of these compounds in treated drinking water, because no safe level of exposure exists.

Landfill leachate is known to be toxic – this is the very reason that landfills contain and collect it. Yet, regulatory loopholes allow it to be dumped, untreated, into surface waters.A precautionary approach to leachate disposal, one that stops leachate disposal at sewage treatment plants, would put NYS on a better path with regard to drinking water safety.

 

TAKE ACTION 
Urge The NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to Adopt New Regulations for On-site Treatment and Disposal of Leachate at Landfills

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