EPA should check for more chemicals in drinking water, advisers say

The US Environmental Protection Agency should add more industrial chemicals to its draft list of candidates for drinking-​water monitoring, according to the EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB).

The recommendation came after the board reviewed the EPA’s 2021 draft list of chemicals and biological materials that are candidates for future regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

That draft list includes per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). In an Aug. 19 report to EPA administrator Michael Regan, the board recommends that the agency expand its definition of PFAS “to capture all relevant fluorinated compounds and degradates in commercial use or entering the environment” so that such chemicals are included in the final version of the list.

Bisphenol A, an estrogen-​mimicking substance, is on the draft list. The SAB suggests that the agency also add bisphenols F and S—chemical cousins to and substitutes for bisphenol A—to the final list. The EPA should consider including bisphenols AF, B, D, and E as well, the report says.

Organophosphate esters as a group should be added to the final list, the report says. The EPA’s draft includes two of these molecules, tributyl phosphate and tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate. Listing organophosphate esters as a group would “encourage additional research to elucidate the full impact” of these substances on children’s health, the report says.

In the future, the EPA should consider antimicrobials, antimicrobial-resistance genes, microplastics, and nanoparticles as candidates for monitoring, the SAB says.