The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made available, and is accepting comments, on three draft documents designed to guide professionals in protecting human health from three per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are long lasting man-made chemicals found in some consumer and industrial products.

Because PFAS chemicals can build up in living things and cause various health issues, the EPA took action on those chemicals during 2024, including issuing a final rule on April 10, 2024 that sets drinking water standards for five individual PFAS substances, including PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, and HFPO-DA. Furthermore, on April 19, 2024, the EPA issued a second PFAS rule designating PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances because those chemicals have been linked to cancers, immune and developmental damage to infants and children, and has some impact on the liver and heart.

The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to develop and publish—and from time-to-time revise—recommended criteria for the protection of water quality that accurately reflect the latest scientific knowledge, EPA says. The EPA’s draft human health criteria (HHC) documents for the three PFAS chemicals became available on Dec. 26, 2024, and the EPA stresses the documents are not regulations, but are guides that provide states and tribes with information on ambient water quality criteria for PFAS substances that can help those entities consider water quality standards.

The national recommended ambient water quality criteria for human health are scientifically derived numeric values that define ambient water concentrations that are expected to protect human health from the adverse effects of individual pollutants in ambient water, according to EPA.

The draft criteria listed in the documents are based on the EPA’s current methodology for deriving ambient water quality criteria for the protection of human health, and reflect the latest scientific information for input values, including exposure factors (i.e., body weight, drinking water intake rate, and fish consumption rate), bioaccumulation factors, human health toxicity values (i.e., reference dose or cancer slope factor), and relative source contribution. The draft HHC documents are:

• Draft Human Health Ambient Water Quality Criteria: Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Related Salts.
• Draft Human Health Ambient Water Quality Criteria: Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS) and Related Salts.
• Draft Human Health Ambient Water Quality Criteria: Perfluorobutane Sulfonic Acid (PFBS) and Related Salts.

The EPA is accepting comments on the draft HHC documents until Feb. 24, 2025. All comment submissions must include the “Docket ID No.,” which is EPA–HQ–OW–2024–0454. Comments can be submitted by any of the following methods:

• Federal eRulemaking Portal at regulations.gov (preferred method). Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
• Email: ow-docket@epa.gov. Include Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OW–2024–0454 in the subject line of the message.
• Mail: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center, Water Docket, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20460.
• Hand Delivery or Courier: EPA Docket Center, WJC West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004. The Docket Center’s hours of operations are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday (except Federal holidays).

Comments received may be posted without change to https://www.regulations.gov/, and will include any personal information provided.

Click here to read the Federal Register notice.