EPA Drinking Water Standard For “Forever Chemicals” PFAS Exposes Less Stringent NJ DEP Standard
Murphy DEP Reverses Historical Role Of DEP Adopting More Stringent State Standards
The US EPA just adopted a national drinking water standard (known as an “MCL”) for the “forever chemicals” PFAS.
The EPA national standard is 4 ug/L – 4 parts per trillion*.
In contrast, the NJ DEP – highly touted as a national leader on PFAS regulation by the cheerleading NJ press corps and environmental groups – adopted a far less stringent NJ State drinking water standard of 14 ug/L, more than 3 TIMES higher than the EPA national standard.
NJ legally is forced to comply with the federal EPA far lower and more protective MCL public health standard.
Historically, the NJ DEP has adopted NJ State standards that are far more stringent than federal minimums.
These more stringent NJ State standards are authorized by the NJ Safe Drinking Water Act, which, in contrast to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, prohibits consideration of costs and establishes a 1 in one million individual lifetime cancer risk standard, both of which NJ State standards are far more stringent that the federal EPA risk range of 1 in ten thousand to 1 in a million and which allows consideration of costs.
Yet despite this federal EPA regulatory action that exposes the NJ DEP standard as less protective of public health – a reverse of NJ’s 30 year history – DEP issued a favorable press release that ignored all that.
A reasonable and humble response from NJ DEP would be to applaud EPA for following the science and pledging to strengthen NJ’s standards and do better.
But instead of a muted and low profile NJ DEP response, DEP Commissioner LaTourette decided to deflect attention from the embarrassing reality of DEP’s lax NJ State standard and the betrayal of 30 years of DEP adopting far more stringent NJ State standards.
Read the DEP press release – and never trust these people again:
*typo corrected