EPA sends mixed signals on PFAS: What it means for New York’s water and health
Weakened drinking water rules and cleanup confusion put the Hudson and New Yorkers at risk
September 25, 2025
Larissa Liebmann
Staff Attorney
Recent decisions about PFAS — also known as “forever chemicals” — made by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are creating confusion about the status of federal regulation and the impacts of these decisions on the health of New Yorkers and the Hudson River.
These actions weaken the overall regulatory framework needed for government agencies and organizations like Riverkeeper to fully address PFAS contamination across the country.
What is going on with PFAS regulation?
In September, 2025, the EPA took two seemingly contradictory actions on PFAS. On September 11, the EPA announced the agency’s intent to roll back federal drinking water standards for some types of PFAS. A week later, the EPA announced that the agency planned to maintain the classification of two types of PFAS as “hazardous substances” under federal hazardous waste cleanup standards.
To understand the implication of these actions it is helpful to review the roles of different federal environmental laws. Each law focuses on different ways people are exposed to pollutants or how they enter the environment.
One example of a law intended to prevent the release of pollutants is the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA). The TSCA gives the EPA the power to regulate the chemicals that companies use and put into products. Unfortunately, chemicals that existed prior to TSCA were subject to only a limited review, which is why companies are allowed to put PFAS in a wide range of consumer products.
The EPA has taken some measures to address PFAS under the TSCA, including requiring EPA review of new uses of certain types of PFAS and implementing reporting requirements for manufacturers of PFAS. Rather than seek to ban PFAS, in 2006, EPA requested companies voluntarily phase-out the import and manufacturing of two types of PFAS — PFOA and PFOS — by 2015. Evidence suggests that this voluntary phase-out has not significantly reduced exposure levels to these PFAS.
The Clean Water Act is intended to prevent the release of pollutants into the water, but in January, 2025 the Trump Administration prevented the finalization of federal standards limiting the release of PFAS by corporations into waterways.
Once pollutants like PFAS are in the environment, laws that protect people from exposure come into play. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) addresses exposure to pollutants in drinking water, while the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as Superfund, aims to clean up places with heavy contamination. The EPA’s recent actions are related to these two laws.
PFAS in drinking water
In 2024, the EPA finalized limits on six types of PFAS chemicals in drinking water. The six types of PFAS can be divided into two categories based on their chemical structure: long-chain PFAS (PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA) and short-chain PFAS (PFBS). The EPA is rolling back the limits on all PFAS, except PFOA and PFOS. It is also lengthening the allowable time to implement the new standards by two years.
These changes will impact New Yorkers in two ways. First, they will allow drinking water to contain higher levels of PFAS for a longer period of time. Right now, New York State has its own drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS (10 ng/L). EPA’s standard regulated these PFAS at 4 ng/L, which is more protective than New York State’s standards. The delay in implementation will mean that rather than this enhanced protection starting in 2029, it will not begin until 2031. Additionally, due to the differences in chemical structure, many water-treatment methods that remove long-chain PFAS from water will not effectively remove short-chain PFAS. PFBS, a short-chain PFAS that was included in EPA’s original drinking water standards, but removed from the final rule, has been found in the drinking water of over 1.5 million New Yorker’s taps as of 2023. The presence of short-chain PFAS in the environment is also growing, because companies are phasing out the use of long-chain PFAS and replacing them with short-chain PFAS under the mistaken assumption that short-chain PFAS will present lower health risks. Removal of short-chain PFAS such as PFBS and of the other four PFAS that were part of the original standards will discourage attempts to limit these PFAS from entering our waterways and our drinking water.
PFAS cleanup
On September 17, the EPA announced that it will retain the CERCLA hazardous substance designation for PFOA and PFOS. This designation requires companies to report and track accidental releases of PFOA and PFOS, and gives the EPA the power to require companies responsible for PFAS contamination to clean up the impacted area. Maintaining this designation may assist Riverkeeper’s efforts to ensure an expeditious clean up at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, where PFAS contaminated soil, groundwater, and the city’s drinking water reservoir, Washington Lake.
However, the EPA’s rollbacks to federal drinking water standards may adversely impact how well the site is cleaned up. Maximum contaminant levels set by drinking water standards are often used as guideposts in determining the level of clean up required at a contaminated site, as is the case in Newburgh. So, while the EPA is maintaining the PFAS hazardous substance designation for PFOA and PFOS, signaling that a cleanup is needed, the rollback of the drinking water standards means that the cleanup may not be as complete.
What does this mean for your health?
There are currently no federal standards that prevent the manufacture and release of more PFAS, and PFAS do not break down readily in the environment, instead accumulating up the food chain (including in humans). This means that the levels of these “forever chemicals” in the environment will continue to increase. What meager action the EPA is taking on PFAS only reduces exposure to two long-chain PFAS (PFOA and PFOS), out of nearly 15,000 types of these chemicals.
PFAS can enter waterways in various ways including through industrial discharges, urban and agricultural runoff, atmospheric deposition, and in wastewater effluent, all of which can impact drinking water. Riverkeeper Science Director, Shannon Roback, recently published an academic paper detailing how domestic wastewater from personal residences can be a large source of PFAS in wastewater effluent. This underscores the need to reduce PFAS at its source by removing or reducing its use in the manufacturing of consumer products if we want to reduce human exposure in drinking water.
What is Riverkeeper doing to help?
Riverkeeper and our members are helping to move the needle on critical, protective state regulations and legislation. In response to the EPA’s rollback of federal drinking standards, Riverkeeper is calling on the the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to continue to implement the EPA’s initial, more protective drinking water standards. If the Governor’s administration chooses not to advance state regulations to address this issue, Riverkeeper supports state legislation S.3207a/A.8634 (Kavanagh/Lee) to codify the federal PFAS drinking water standards in state statute.
Riverkeeper and our members also are calling for measures that actually target the source of PFAS in the environment, such as the PFAS Discharge Disclosure Act, and a bill that would prohibit the sale of common household goods and materials that intentionally contain PFAS. Additionally, Riverkeeper is monitoring cleanups at two airports with contaminated soil and groundwater from PFAS-containing firefighting foam to ensure drinking water is protected and the sites are fully restored now and for future generations.
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