The Trump administration has scrapped Biden-era drinking water regulations designed to limit exposure to Pfas, betting instead on emerging technologies to destroy the so-called forever chemicals at scale. Environmental advocates and scientists say the gamble prioritizes industry profits over public health and relies on technology that doesn't yet exist in any reliable form.
The EPA announced last week that it would eliminate strong drinking water limits on four Pfas compounds while delaying implementation standards for two others. At a press conference framed as a "Pfas destruction event," administration officials including EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promoted an "explosion in destruction technology" and touted federal investment in industry-led efforts to eliminate the chemicals.
The pitch amounted to this: we don't need drinking water regulations because we'll simply destroy Pfas. The problem is fundamental. "No one has said they can destroy Pfas on a large scale," said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist now with the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "To say 'We're going to destroy it so we don't need to regulate it' is nonsensical."
Pfas is a class of at least 16,000 compounds engineered to resist water, stains, and grease. They persist for thousands of years in the environment by design, have contaminated an estimated 200 million Americans' drinking water, and have been linked to cancer, birth defects, compromised immunity, kidney disease, and other serious health conditions. They turn up in polar bear blood, rainwater in remote areas, and virtually every soil sample tested.
The Trump approach mirrors the fossil fuel industry's embrace of carbon capture technology, Bennett noted. Both strategies offer the appearance of action while allowing continued pollution and production to benefit industry at the public's expense.
The technical problem: destruction that doesn't fully work
Current Pfas destruction methods, including incineration and thermal oxidation, often fail to fully eliminate the chemicals. Instead, they break Pfas molecules into smaller pieces, or byproducts, that may be equally hazardous. Regulators typically cannot detect these byproducts, but their absence from testing does not mean they don't exist or cause harm.
A 2023 independent investigation of a Chemours Pfas plant illustrates the gap. The company and regulators claimed a thermal oxidizer destroyed 99.999 percent-plus of Pfas. When tested with methods sensitive to all Pfas, the air around the facility showed evidence of chemicals regulators had missed. The chemicals were not fully destroyed.
The same pattern repeats across more than 200 garbage, hazardous waste, and sewage sludge incinerators across the nation, which release Pfas into the air at alarming levels despite industry claims to the contrary. If the Trump administration's plan succeeds, such facilities are likely to multiply.
Laura Orlando, a waste management systems engineer at Boston University, noted that sewage sludge from water treatment plants is heavily contaminated with Pfas. Rather than reduce production or find genuine alternatives, industry proposes unproven destruction methods for the sludge itself. "You can explain the Trump administration's moves by following the money," Orlando said. "Taxpayers shoulder most of the cost, and the powerful waste management industry gets paid."
Removing Pfas from water costs up to $18 per pound, not including destruction costs. The economics favor industry inaction over regulation, and federal investment in experimental destruction technology serves that interest far better than drinking water limits ever could.
Destruction of Pfas faces the same fundamental problems as carbon capture: it is inefficient, expensive, unreliable, and prone to failure. It is not a substitute for regulation. What's needed instead, Orlando said, is research funded by entities without profit motives, working transparently with public health as the priority. "Right now the fox is guarding the hen house, and it's not looking good for the hens."
Author James Rodriguez: "The administration is selling a fantasy as science, and the drinking water is the bill that gets paid."
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