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WASHINGTON -- Not enough is being done to get chemical contaminants out of U.S. waterways, witnesses and lawmakers agreed during a held by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure's Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

"The last administration needlessly weakened Clean Water Act provisions over rivers, streams, and wetlands that provide drinking water to over 117 million Americans, but fortunately, that legal action has now been thrown out by the courts," said subcommittee chairperson Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) at Wednesday's hearing.

"The last administration also slowed water quality enforcement efforts to a standstill ... and actually tried to undermine and silence scientific and technical expertise, and the effectiveness of the [Environmental Protection Agency; EPA], putting all of our communities at risk," she continued. While the Biden administration has begun to undo those actions, "there is a lot of work to be done to correct previous inadequacies and get our research in water quality back on track."

Problems for Water Treatment Plants

Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.), the subcommittee's ranking member, noted that water and wastewater treatment facilities are in a unique position when it comes to this type of pollution -- for example, "they're not responsible for PFAS [per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances] and other contaminants of emerging concern entering water sources, but they are responsible for water treatment and cleaning it up, nonetheless ... Our water and wastewater utilities face the prospect of significant liability, based on how they deal with these substances, even though they did not create them. The options before them are expensive, which can become a great burden for many communities and their ratepayers." refers to a group of chemicals that can persist in the body over time and have been shown to have adverse health effects.

"We need to better understand where these substances come from, whether that's a manufacturing facility, or from the personal products or medicines we use in our own homes that then are passed along into wastewater," he added. "There are many household products that will take your breath away if inhaled, but in fact they go right down the drain every day. Addressing these downstream impacts beforehand can avoid a lot of health and environmental concerns and expense."

One witness who addressed the water treatment issue was Chris Kennedy, town manager of Pittsboro, North Carolina, which has a population of 4,500. Because of high levels of PFAS chemicals, residents "are afraid of our drinking water and its effects on their short- and long-term health," Kennedy said. "The COVID-19 pandemic has only intensified these concerns as we are now worried about the efficacy of the vaccines in our internal immune systems that are compromised by prolonged exposure to these contaminants through our drinking water."

To address the problem, Pittsboro is spending $3.4 million to modernize its water plant, using $1.4 million in funds received from the American Rescue Plan Act and also increasing water rates by 43%. "Our entire water and wastewater budget in fiscal year 2021 was $3.9 million, so a single $3.4 million project that nearly exceeds our typical operating capital budget is concerning," he said. "I speak to support stricter regulations on emerging contaminants and 'forever' chemicals, and for a common maximal acceptable contamination level for drinking and recreational waters ... Eliminating the term 'recommendation' in favor of clear, precise goals of acceptable contamination is what we seek."

Reactive Instead of Proactive

Elizabeth Southerland, PhD, former director of science and technology at the EPA's Office of Water, said the nation is "currently suffering from a reactive system that waits for a public health or environmental crisis to occur before we begin monitoring and even considering controls. This happened with the PFAS 'forever' chemicals and will happen in the future with other contaminants if we fail to develop a proactive approach."

She recommended that Congress require the federal government to develop and maintain a priority list of harmful chemicals for use by federal and state water monitoring programs. "Once monitoring better identifies where these contaminants pose risks, EPA and the states can control these discharges to the nation's waters ... EPA and FDA can also use this information to improve their chemical review programs to prevent new contaminants from entering the environment."

Witnesses also discussed the harmful effects of microplastics -- plastic pieces smaller than the width of a pencil that are composed of a variety of chemical compounds. "Microplastics are pervasive in our waterways and aquatic organisms," said Elise Granek, PhD, associate professor of environmental science and management at Portland State University in Oregon. "Here in the Pacific Northwest, in recreationally harvested razor clams and commercially valuable Pacific oysters and pink shrimp, 95 out of 100 individuals have microplastics in their tissues ... Other studies report microplastics in drinking water, sea salt, craft beer, and honey. So it isn't surprising that a recent study out of New York State found that all infant and adult stool samples collected contained microplastics."

"Microplastics may be affecting human health, but no federal regulations currently exist to inform consumers of microplastics in their food, set safe levels of microplastics in human food items or drinking water, or limit microplastic release into waterways," she said. When it comes to microplastics and other chemical contaminants such as pesticides, "more active management between policymakers and scientists is needed to determine appropriate benchmarks for these chemicals, both individually and in combination with other chemicals, to safeguard environmental and human health."

More Rules for New Chemicals

There is some good news on the regulation front, at least in regard to new chemicals coming into the market, Southerland said. Although the Toxic Substances Control Act, which regulates these contaminants, used to require the federal government to demonstrate a problem before it could take any action on a chemical, recent revisions to the law "gave EPA a really important role about doing a safety evaluation before the chemical enters commerce ... So what we find is a real need for EPA to use -- which they did not do in the previous administration -- all their authorities to require adequate data from the chemical company asking to bring a new chemical into commerce, so that they can make a good reasonable safety decision."

Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) asked whether it would be helpful to set deadlines for EPA to meet some of its responsibilities, specifically those related to the Clean Water Act, but Southerland said no. "Deadlines are deeply problematic when an agency is the smallest it's been since the 1980s," she noted. "To put deadlines in now, when the agency is in such a critical condition, is really not going to be helpful because they literally do not have the human capital to carry these things out on any kind of tight deadline. We need to beef up the staff, train them, and then we can worry about having tight deadlines."

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