EPA designates microplastics and pharmaceuticals as contaminants in drinking water

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed for the first time to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals in its list of contaminants in drinking water, a move that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said they are responding to Americans who are concerned about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. The gesture also aims to win over Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement, which for months has pressed Zeldin to crack down more on environmental pollutants.

EPA’s Contaminant Candidate List identifies contaminants in drinking water that are not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The agency is publishing a draft of the sixth version of the list, which opens a 60-day public comment period. It expects to finalize the list by mid-November.

“I can’t think of an issue closer to home for American families than the safety of their drinking water,” Zeldin said at EPA headquarters.

The study looked at the prevalence of microplastics in drinking water and in the human heart, brain and testicles. Doctors and scientists are still evaluating what this means in terms of human health risks, but say there is cause for concern. There is growing concern about pharmaceuticals that enter water supplies because people excrete them and traditional wastewater treatment plants fail to remove them.

The EPA uses the list to prioritize research, funding and regulatory decision-making, but rarely takes pollutants off the list to set limits on how much is allowed in public drinking water. The EPA said in March that it would not develop regulations for any of the nine pollutants from the list it recently examined.

“This is the beginning of a very long process that routinely ends in nothing,” said Eric Olson, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who works on drinking water protection.

Still, some urging the government to do more to curb plastic pollution say the announcement is a good start.

“Including it on the list will be the first step toward eventually regulating microplastics in public water supplies and hopefully not the last step,” said Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator who now leads Beyond Plastics.

Director of Boston College’s Global Observatory on Planetary Health Dr. Philip Landrigan said that while the EPA is moving in the right direction, it will make little difference if the United States does not stop the rapid increase in plastic production, which causes plastic pollution. The US is participating in negotiations on a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution, but strongly opposes limits on plastic production.

Food and Water Watch says listing is important but ultimately falls short of their call for monitoring. EPA uses the random contaminant monitoring rule to collect data for suspected contaminants in drinking water.

The American Chemistry Council, an industry group, said it supports monitoring of microplastics in drinking water and research to better understand the potential impacts, as long as the monitoring is standardized and nationwide.

Plastic pollution is part of the mega agenda

Joint Action by Kennedy and Zeldin Activists in Kennedy’s movement have forged a delicate political relationship with the EPA, but have expressed frustration at the lack of action on their priorities, including pesticide regulation.

The movement began earlier this year over President Donald Trump’s executive order to boost production of the controversial herbicide known as glyphosate. Kennedy has said he was disappointed by the executive order but considered it necessary for agricultural stability and national security.

The EPA has teased an upcoming MAHA agenda that it says will forever address issues like chemicals, plastic pollution, food quality, Superfund cleanups and lead pipes. In February, EPA Press Secretary Brigitte Hirsch told The Associated Press that the agenda was in its “final stages.”

Kennedy, whose 2024 independent presidential campaign focused on tackling plastic pollution, also announced a $144 million effort to better measure, understand and remove microplastics entering the human body.

Called STOMP, or Systemic Targeting of Microplastics, it involves building tools to detect and quantify microplastics, map how they move through the body, and ultimately remove microplastics from the human body, he said.

“We can’t deal with what we can’t measure, we can’t regulate what we don’t understand,” Kennedy said at the EPA on Thursday. “Together, we will define risk, build tools and act on evidence related to microplastics.”

Mahaka leaders, farmers and organizations wrote to Zeldin on Tuesday asking him to address the health impacts of pesticides, plastics and PFAS chemicals. Regarding plastics, they said the agenda should include monitoring for microplastics, establishing new limits on microplastic exposure and allowing new or expanding plastic production facilities to be banned.

David Murphy, a former fundraiser for Kennedy’s presidential campaign, now works with the MAHA movement on its priorities as a founder of United We Eat. Murphy said it was encouraging to see progress on microplastics, but criticized Zeldin for approving new pesticides during his tenure.

“It’s one step forward, two steps back at the EPA,” he said Thursday.

EPA publishes the list every five years

The Safe Drinking Water Act, as amended in 1996, directed the EPA to publish a list of candidate pollutants every five years. Then, the agency must determine whether to regulate at least five pollutants from the list. In five cycles of the process, EPA has determined that no regulatory action is appropriate or necessary for most of the pollutants considered.

Trump seeks fewer environmental regulations. In May, the EPA announced plans to lift limits on some less common “permanent chemicals” in drinking water, nearly a year after the Biden administration first finalized the national standards. NRDC and other environmental advocates are fighting to keep the entire Biden-era rule in place.

The new draft list includes four contaminant groups — microplastics, pharmaceuticals, PFAS and disinfection byproducts — as well as 75 chemicals and nine microbes that are found in drinking water, the EPA said.

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Associated Press writers Michael Phillis and Matthew Daley in Washington contributed to this report.

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