Last week the Biden – Harris Administration designated PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability ACT (CERCLA), also known as Superfund via EPA CERCLA Press Release. According to the Save our Water group’s recent press release it states that, “For Communities like the Town of Peshtigo and Marinette, this designation is an enormous step forward in ensuring environmental health for the public while simultaneously holding corporate polluters accountable for their decades long abuse.” Cindy Boyle and another impacted innocent landowner petitioned the EPA in 2022 as a potential safety net against their communities PFAS contamination. “This designation was critical to the viability of that petition and today we feel encouraged, validated, and again hopeful that our community will get the remediation and safe drinking water they deserve,” says Boyle.

Boyle says, “if you are looking to have constant remediation completed and that of course, is helpful, if you have the full weight of the Federal Government coming in behind to require that; it’s my understanding they wouldn’t be able to have the same enforcement authority, in fact they weren’t deemed hazardous substances. I believe it was necessary and very effective, hopefully effective, step in our community’s process.”

The designation of PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances is based on significant evidence that these compounds present a substantial danger to humans and the environment. PFOA and PFOS bioaccumulate in the human body for long periods of time and evidence from laboratory animal and human epidemiology studies indicate that exposure can cause several types of cancer, reproductive problems, child developmental issues, cardiovascular, liver, kidney, and immunological effects.