States Are Taking Action, Slowly, on Nonstick Chemicals

you get your podcasts. Today i'm Parts Provilion. We talk about a particular toxic chemical that many of you may be familiar with, and why some states are choosing to ban this chemical, but not today, and not tomorrow, and not for a while. Hello. Welcome back once again to Parts per Billion, the environmental podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm your host David Schultz. Today we're talking about pfas. You know it, I know it. It's a frequent topic here

on this podcast. Pfas are a class of chemicals known for their ridiculously strong molecular bonds. That means they're great for smothering fires or applying a nonstick coating to a surface, but it also means it takes forever for them to break down in the environment, which is earned in the nickname Forever chemicals. Several states have moved to enact bands on the use of pfas, and notably one of those

states is California. We spoke with Bloomberglock California correspondent Emily Cdoley about why the Golden State took this step and why this band doesn't actually go into effect until near the end of this decade. But first we asked her

to explain exactly what pfasts are. So. Proflorinated compounds are like this family of about five thousand chemicals that are man made, and they are used because they are stain, water and grease resistance, so they're popular and like nonstick cooking in food packaging, in stain resistant carpeting, and they're also used in firefighting foam to put out like fuel fires.

They're very popular because they don't break down in water, but that also means that they're very ubiquitous in water, and they're found throughout the country in water supplies and out in dairy and they've been found in other places. So it's a chemical that is widely that is popular, but is also problematic in some ways because exposure can can cause a number of different issues. It can cause

sort of developmental problems and children. It could reduce effectiveness of vaccines, It can cause maybe increase your likelihood of certain cancers. But there's still a lot of work that needs to be done on exposure, and with so many thousands of chemicals out there, each one has its own peculiarities. Speaking of exposure, it sounds like there's some new data on just how widespread these chemicals are in water in California.

You know, we've been reporting on this for several years and it just amazes me how we still are finding out more information about where it is. Can you talk about the latest data that we have now in California? Sure? So, the state at the in twenty nineteen launched kind of a phased in survey of water supply wells and water wells near landfills, airports and other areas to try to get a sense of what exactly kind of was out there and if it could pinpoint any sources to PFOS contamination.

And so it's been gathering They've been gathering data for quite some time, and now they have sort of a robust set and the latest information is sixty percent of the wells that they sampled had some detections of PFOS six, so more wells than not have some level of prefas. Of what was sampled, they didn't sample every well in the state. They did about I believe about nine hundred. They looked in what areas that they thought would be vulnerable.

So they're trying to get a better picture of where the contamination is and sort of where to go from there. So that wasn't the only recent news on p fas in California recently. Also, maybe baring the lead here a little bit, the governor just signed a bill that bans the use of this chemical. Tell me about this bill and tell me why it made it all the way to the governor's desk and got signed. So the chemical the bill that the governor signed is it bans firefighting

foams that contain PFAT. So p fas chemicals are very popular and because they can sort of envelop a fire and like cut out the oxygen and so that's how it puts out fuel fires. Right, It's not your normal kind of water fires. So the governor's office signed the bill a couple of weeks ago, and it basically by twenty twenty two bans the use of this fire fighting foam. In most cases, there's some delays for entities that have suppression systems or kind of containment, and then refineries will

have to comply in about twenty twenty eight. But it's it's sort of firefighters are often they get a lot of exposure from firefighting, right and this is one of the ways that the state is trying to reduce their exposures to firefighters as well as this these contaminants getting

into the water supply. Because the state survey that also found you know, p FAZ contamination in water wells, they found that the highest concentrations of pfas were at airports, you know, up to about million parts per trillion, which was higher than sort of anywhere else. So it's a

significant contributor to the contamination. We're going to take a quick break now, but when we come back, we'll have more of Emily talking about pfas in California and other states, and about the whole federalism thing here stay with us. I think it's really interesting that they put such a long lead time in the bill. You know that some people can continue using this through twenty twenty eight. You know, that tells me that this is going to be a

really hard chemical to get out of the system. And it's probably because it's so effective. I mean, it's you know, it wouldn't have been invented, it wouldn't have been used if it didn't do what it's supposed to do really really well. Right, Well, the bill did not start out with such a lengthy timeline. There was negotiations and opposition

that needed to be overcome to pass the bill. And remember this as a session that was extremely shortened by the coronavirus pandemic, so very limited number of bills that were not related to the coronavirus pandemic were making it through.

And so there was opposition from you know, oil industry and others because they were concerned because they say that this is the most effect of way to fight fires, right and in some cases, like the federal government requires the this type of phone to be used at airports, So there was a lot of things that needed to be put in there to kind of make it so people would vote for it. And in fact, the airports where the federal laws say that you have to have

a p fossil, they're exempt. That's interesting though it sounds like this bill really had an interesting journey from when it was first proposed to the time when it made it to Governor Newsom's desk that it was I don't want to say watered down, because I think that's kind of a loaded term, but that it sounds like there were a lot of exemptions put in, there was there, the timelines were pushed back. Is that the is that the case? Yep, that's sort of how it works with

Bill's here. You know, there's a lot of give and take. There's a lot of hearings, there's a lot of pushback, there's a lot of lobbying money. So it's not unusual

for things to be maybe minimum. But in truth, it's interesting that it passed because sometimes bills with a lot of a lot of opposition, they go from declaring something to they get amended to it's only studying something, right, So this is taking actual action, so it's still a significant step, though perhaps not as quick as originally intended by the author. That's a really good point. I guess that's kind of a glass half full way of looking

at it. That the fact that this bill passed at all, even though it's going to be such a difficult thing to regulate. Indicates how strongly people feel about the threat that these chemicals pose and you know the need for government action right that that you know, this bill even went as far as it did. Yeah, you know, p FAS has been sort of on the radar of some politicians and kind of the state for a couple of years now, so it's been getting a little bit more attention.

But yeah, you know, there were you know, a lot of legislators can have you know, dozens of bills going through the system, and this year some people only had like one or two, so it was it was one that made it through, So that's significant. This will be like the year of the surviving Bill finally. You know, unlike the way usually is, California is not the first state to pass this new regulation. I know, you guys pride yourself on, you know, being the sort of laboratory

of democracy, but not this time. There are actually a couple other states that already have passed p FASS bands. What does that say about the way this chemical is being regulated that states are doing this on their own and you know this is not a top down federal push to to you know, get this these chemicals out

of commerce. So several states have taken action in a number of fronts relating to p foss notches, firefighting foam, Kentucky, Virginia, Washington State, they all have similar bands about firefighting foam. But other states have set drinking water standards and they're doing it in the face of in the lack of action from the EPA, and that existed prior to this administration. There were sort of delays under the Obama administration as well, and so some states are saying, you know, this is

a problem, it's showing up. If you're not going to do something, we have to. I remember I was in New York when they announced that they were going to do stuff with two pfast compounds, and it was after Governor Cromo had sort of pleaded with the EPA to take action because they didn't want to be standing alone. But there are several states out there that have maybe gone rogue and are trying to get a handle on

this because it's a problem that's being found everywhere. When it was first sampled for several years ago, the detection level was set high so that there weren't a lot of detections found and then as people started testing at lower levels, they were finding it more and more places. So it's been an unraveling sort of situation. That's it for today's episode of Parts per Billion. If you want more environmental news, check us out on Twitter. We use

a pretty easy handle to remember. It's at environment. Just that at Environment, I am at David be Schultz. If you have any fan mail you'd like to send along fan tweets, I guess. Today's episode of Parts rebillion was produced by myself and Josh Block. Parts pabillion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Daigle. The music for today's episode is a Message by Jazar and Night Walk by Polo Conti and Benoit Madrakowski. They were used under Creative

Commons license. Thanks everyone for listening. The killers of Berta Cassras had every reason to believe they'd get away with the murder. Her work as an environmental activist won her the admiration of celebrities in California, politicians in Washington, and the indigenous communities she worked alongside in Honduras. It also earned her powerful enemies. On a new podcast from Bloomberg, Green Blood River follows a four year quest to find

Bertica Cras's killers. Join journalists Montereal and the team from Bloomberg Green as they untangle false leads and mishandled evidence, taking listeners deep into a sector of international development that's marked by high level corruption and rampant violence. Blood River debuts Monday, July twenty seventh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.