January 12, 2018
Mr. Scott Pruitt, Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20460

Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, Director
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
and Administrator, ATSDR
1600 Clifton Road Atlanta, GA 30329-4027

Subject: State Drinking Water Program Recommendations to EPA and CDC on PFAS
Dear Administrator Pruitt and Director Fitzgerald:
The Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA), which represents the 50 states, five
territories, the Navajo Nation and the District of Columbia has serious concerns with the growing public
health issues associated with Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in drinking water. ASDWA’s
members regulate and provide technical assistance and funding for the nation’s 160,000 public water
systems (PWS), and coordinate with multiple partners to ensure safe drinking water for our nation’s 324
million residents.
ASDWA urges EPA and CDC to work in partnership with ASDWA and state drinking water programs, and
with the Department of Defense (DoD) to address these growing public health concerns. Our primary
recommendation is that a working committee be formed with ASDWA, EPA, CDC, and DoD leadership to
work on the list of specific recommendations attached. Given the potential adverse public health
implications from PFAS, ASDWA recommends that this group be established as soon as possible.
ASDWA’s second urgent recommendation, following the development of a working committee of the
pertinent agencies, is for the federal government to develop a unified message to the public and state
regulators on what to do about PFAS, and to work in unison with other stakeholders, and in a timely
manner, to minimize the potential adverse effects to public health and the environment from PFAS.
Knowledge is continually evolving on a wide range of PFAS issues, and this new knowledge needs to be
transferred to the public and state regulators in a coherent and cogent manner. Without this unified
message and information, we’re concerned that several sets of differing risk numbers will be
communicated from each agency, which will cause confusion, delay, or worse, no action at all.
For example, three states (Minnesota, New Jersey, and Vermont) have proposed or established PFAS
standards or guidelines that are lower than EPA’s Health Advisories (HAs). These differences among
states demonstrate the difficulty in calculating health risk goals and determining risk reductions without
federal standards, and are creating public confusion about what levels of PFAS are safe in drinking
water. In addition, EPA’s FAQ document and HAs for PFOA and PFOS are unclear on PWS actions for
susceptible populations which is causing some states to recommend that water systems issue “do not
drink” public notices, while other states are interpreting EPA’s HAs to recommend that water systems
provide public notice without any explicit actions.
When EPA’s 2016 HAs for PFOA and PFOS were combined with the occurrence data from the Third
Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR3), state drinking water program administrators had
to determine how to handle all the information on their own. The result has been some confusion on
appropriate actions and a lack of consistent responses from state to state. As the number of PFAS
1401 WILSON BLVD · SUITE 1225 · ARLINGTON, VA 22209
PHONE (703) 812-9505 · FAX (703) 812-9506 · info@asdwa.org · www.asdwa.org

 compounds and PFAS contaminated sites continues to grow, so will the complexity and urgency of this
problem.
ASDWA and its members provide the enclosed table of recommendations for your respective agencies
to implement to address our states’ drinking water program challenges that are summarized below:
• Directly engage with states in the development of any new PFAS guidelines, health advisories
(HAs), or minimum risk levels, and support current state efforts to ensure the ability of states to
assess and address PFAS and the consistency of actions across states.
• Directly engage with states to develop guidance for PWS with clear recommendations to ensure
more consistent response actions and protocols, explain the associated health risks with PFAS,
and provide clear direction for consumers to reduce their risk from PFAS in drinking water and
other identified pathways.
• Conduct more health effects research and develop consistent health effects determinations (risk
levels) for known and unknown PFAS.
• Increase funding and support for non-targeted analyses of drinking water for PFAS and
substitute compounds to ensure that any potential adverse impacts of new chemicals on
groundwater and surface water are identified, and the associated health risks are understood.
• Develop rules or guidance to prevent PFAS from contaminating drinking water through other
media (i.e., underground injection control, soil leaching, deposition from air emissions, and
wastewater discharges).
• Directly engage with stakeholders and industry to assess and address the universe of known and
unknown PFAS compounds that are being used and evaluate fire-fighting foam alternatives, to
provide a knowledge base to state media programs for development of guidance and
regulations, and to protect drinking water at the source.
• Consider bias and error in analytical methods and develop additional analytical methods for
drinking water and other media, develop standards for branched and linear isomers, coordinate
with lab vendors, develop guidance for standardization of lab results for PFAS analytes (i.e., acid
form and/or different salt forms), and increase lab programs and capacity beyond UCMR3.
Resources for state drinking water programs that address PFAS contamination, in addition to traditional
compliance oversight and enforcement for the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) regulations, are already
stretched thin. Your leadership in convening these agencies toward a unified solution and message is
vitally and urgently needed. Thank you for your consideration of these recommendations. We look
forward to discussing them in greater detail and to continue to coordinate with you on efforts to
address PFAS in drinking water. If you have questions about these recommendations, please feel free to
contact me at ldaniels@pa.gov or contact Alan Roberson, ASDWA’s Executive Director at
aroberson@asdwa.org .
Sincerely,

Lisa Daniels, ASDWA President and Director, Bureau of Safe Drinking Water Director,
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
cc: Maureen Sullivan, DoD

 ASDWA Recommendations for EPA and CDC to Address State Drinking Water Program Challenges
Topic

States

PWSs

Health Risks

Research and
Development

Underground
Injection Control

ASDWA RECOMMENDATIONS
EPA AND CDC MUST
DEVELOP AND SUPPORT:
Direct engagement with states to
develop any new PFAS guidelines,
health advisories, or standards

Associated Challenges

States have historically relied on
EPA to develop standards and
most states do not have the
expertise to assess and address
PFAS, though a few states have
developed differing PFAS action
levels
Considerations for PFAS as an
PFAS has added a significant state
unfunded mandate
burden beyond existing SDWA
requirements
Direct engagement with states to
• There is a lack of federal
develop PWS guidance with:
leadership to ensure consistent
• Clear recommendations and
state, PWS and public response
actions for pregnant women,
actions and protocols and
infants, and other sensitive
explain the associated health
subpopulations (public notice
risks
versus “do not drink”)
• EPA’s HA and FAQ documents
• Health risk messaging, including
are unclear on actions a PWS
other possible exposure routes
can take to help public
and mitigation options
consumers respond to health
advisories
• More health effects research on • Different states have set
all PFAS compounds
different health advisory levels
and standards due to differing
• Consistency between EPA health
opinions among federal and
advisory levels and CDC
state toxicologists
minimum risk levels (MRLs)
• States are finding more PFAS
compounds in source waters
that may pose health risks
Increased funding and support for • Only 20 to 30 of the thousands
EPA’s Office of Research and
of PFAS compounds can be
Development laboratories for nonanalyzed by commercial
targeted analyses of drinking water
laboratories
for PFAS and substitute compounds • New substitutes for PFAS and
associated breakdown products
are not fully understood
Specific guidance on under SDWA
40 CFR 144.12(a) on the authority
to prohibit PFAS discharges into
underground sources of drinking
water that “may otherwise
adversely affect the health of
persons”

PFAS used in industrial and
commercial settings are being
discharged in large quantities to
the groundwater via shallow
subsurface systems under the
Class V UIC program

Purpose

To ensure the ability of
states to address PFAS
and the consistency of
actions across states

To ensure the ability of
states to address PFAS
• To ensure consistency
between different
federal and EPA
programs
• To provide clarity for
decision making
processes and actions
• To reduce public
confusion

• To avoid disparities
and changes in future
decision-making
processes
• To alleviate confusion
by states, PWSs, and
the public
To ensure that the
potential adverse
impacts to groundwater
and surface water from
new chemicals are
understood and that
drinking water is
protected
To prevent the
contamination of
drinking water and the
environment

 Topic

ASDWA RECOMMENDATIONS
EPA AND CDC MUST
DEVELOP AND SUPPORT:
Soil Leaching
Guidance for bio-solids on
Standards
maximum PFAS concentrations that
will protect drinking water
Air Emissions
Assess the Clean Air Act for
developing guidance or a rule
aimed at preventing air emissions
from contaminating drinking water
with PFAS
Wastewater
Assess the Clean Water Act for
Discharges
developing guidance or a rule
aimed at preventing wastewater
discharges from contaminating
drinking water with PFAS
Source Water
Convening a group of relevant
Protection/
stakeholders and industry to:
Source Control
• Include PFAS contents in product
labeling
• Identify current use of PFAS and
non-PFAS products that replaced
legacy compounds
• Evaluate fire-fighting foam and
alternatives that will be less
likely to impact drinking water
Laboratories and Efforts to ensure that all future
Sampling
HAs, guidance or standards
explicitly include anticipated bias
and error in drinking water
analytical methods
Additional PFAS analytical methods
for drinking water, wastewater, and
other media

Associated Challenges

Biosolids containing PFAS can
contaminate drinking water in
source water protection areas
Air emissions at sites in multiple
states have contaminated the
public and private drinking water
supplies of tens of thousands of
people
Wastewater discharges at sites in
multiple states have contaminated
the public and private drinking
water supplies of hundreds of
thousands of people
• It is difficult to assess the fate
and transport and toxicity to
human health and the
environment without knowing
which PFAS and other substitute
compounds are being used
• Fire-fighting foam has
contaminated the drinking
water supplies of many PWSs

Purpose

To protect drinking
water quality
To protect drinking
water quality

To address PFAS
compounds at the
source and protect
drinking water quality
To proactively and
directly engage with
PFAS manufacturers and
sellers of PFAS products
to assess and address
the universe of PFAS
compounds being used
and protect drinking
water

Errors in lab results have led to
To ensure accurate
incorrect determinations for
results and associated
health advisory level exceedances state and PWS response
and associated response actions
It is difficult to determine the
source of PFAS and require
generators to limit discharges

To investigate and
address PFAS
compounds at the
source
Development of lab/standard grade Available lab standards do not
To clarify isomer
PFAS standards that contain
include branched isomers for
identification and
branched and linear isomers
some PFAS compounds
differentiation
Coordination with manufactures to Certified standards from different To ensure consistency
ensure standards are consistent
vendors differ by as much as 20% among vendors
from one vendor to another
Guidance for standardization of
Acid forms and/or different salt
To ensure accuracy,
laboratory results
forms of PFAS analytes are
clarity, and consistency
incorrectly listed and reported
of sample results
Ongoing laboratory programs,
To ensure lab capacity
• Lab accreditation is not
capacity, and sampling efforts to
to assess and address
supported after the UCMR
assess PFAS compounds at lower
the occurrence of all
• States are finding more PFAS
detection limits and in targeted
compounds in source waters at PFAS compounds
smaller communities not included
beyond the UCMR3
lower detection limits and in
in UCMR3
smaller communities

  DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH HUMAN SERVICES

 

Public Health Service

Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC)
Atlanta, GA 30333

l?S/il Real; V: 
2018 I Hi January10,2018

Robert A. Bilott

Taft, Stettiniu?s Hollister LLP
1717 Dixie Highway, Suite 910
Covington, Kentucky 41011-4704

Dear Mr. Bilott:

 

Thank you for your letters of December 13, 2017, and January 3, 2018, in follow-up to our
conference call on November 20, 2017, regarding a nationwide PF AS health study and testing.
We understand your concern about the potential impact of per- and poly?uoroalkyl
substances exposure on human health and place a high priority on this issue.

We had mentioned in our letter on November 6, 2017, the initiation of a federal inter?agency
coordination meeting on PFAS in March 2017 that included the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
and others. As a continuation of that effort, we have representation on the steering committee
that is planning a follow-up interagency meeting to be held in February 2018 titled Federal
Information Exchange on PFAS. This meetingis sponsored by the Toxics and Risks Sub-
committee of the White House?s National Science and Technology Council Committee on
Environmental, Natural Resources, and Sustainability which is co-chaired by the Department of
Defense (DOD), EPA, and NIH. Participants will share emerging impactful data and improve
understanding of the science behind decision-making regarding PFAS. This meeting aims to
establish a foundation of common knowledge across federal agencies, and to facilitate future
information-sharing across federal agencies. 

As you mentioned in your December 13, 2017, letter, the 2018 National Defense Authorization
Act (N DAA) that was signed into law by the President on December 12?, includes provisions
that would allow CDC and ATSDR to further address PFAS contamination. This is great
progress for confronting PF AS contamination concerns, however, we have not received the ?nal
Appropriations language and corresponding funding amount that would be made available to
CDC and ATSDR to commence a study on human health implications. In the meantime, we have
begun internal discussions about implementation of the new law and are assessing the most
appropriate and effective designs for a national study. In addition, we are determining the best
approach to complete exposure assessments on no less than eight current and former military
installations.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (N IOSH) is conducting

Page 2 Mr. Bilott

multiple studies of ?re?ghters. For one of the studies, the ?re?ghters were ?ghting ?res for
training purposes while NIOSH was measuring the ?re?ghters? blood, urine and skin for many
contaminants. In April 2017, NIOSH received institutional review board (IRB) approval and the
funds to analyze the ?re?ghters? serum for PFAS. Those results haVe not yet been received and
will not be ready for publication for some time. Please contact Dr. John Howard, the Director of
NIOSH, at jhowardl @cdc. gov to discuss any plans they might have for studying ?re?ghters.

We are currently updating the Toxicological Pro?le for Once the ongoing
internal review has been completed, the revised draft will be released for public
review/comment. At this time, we do not have an anticipated date of release.

We greatly appreciate your interest in this issue. Assessing per? and poly?uoroaklyl substances
exposure is a priority for CDC and ATSDR.

Sincerely,

Patrick Breysse, CIH

Director, National Center for Environmental
Health and ATSDR 

CDC