{"id":511640,"date":"2026-04-04T00:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T00:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/511640\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T00:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T00:21:08","slug":"epa-moves-to-designate-microplastics-and-pharmaceuticals-as-contaminants-in-drinking-water-us-environmental-protection-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/511640\/","title":{"rendered":"EPA moves to designate microplastics and pharmaceuticals as contaminants in drinking water | US Environmental Protection Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA<\/a>) proposed on Thursday to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants in drinking water for the first time, a step that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities.<\/p>\n

Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, said the agency was responding to Americans who have worried about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. The gesture also aims to hand a win to health secretary Robert FKennedy Jr<\/a>\u2019s Maha movement<\/a>, which for months has pressured Zeldin to further crack down on environmental contaminants.<\/p>\n

The EPA\u2019s Contaminant Candidate List identifies contaminants in drinking water not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water<\/a> Act. The agency is publishing the draft of the sixth version of the list, which opens a 60-day public comment period. It expects to finalize the list by mid-November.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t think of an issue that hits closer to home for American families than the safety of their drinking water,\u201d Zeldin said at the EPA headquarters.<\/p>\n

Studies have looked at the prevalence of microplastics in drinking water and in people\u2019s hearts, brains and testicles. Doctors and scientists are still assessing what it means in terms of human health threats but say there is cause for concern. There is also growing worry about pharmaceutical drugs that get into the water supply because humans excrete them and conventional wastewater treatment plants fail to remove them.<\/p>\n

The EPA uses the list to prioritize research, funding and regulatory decision-making, but rarely moves pollutants off the list to set limits for how much is allowed in public drinking water. The EPA said in March that it would not develop regulations for any of the nine pollutants from the list it most recently examined.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the beginning of a very long process that routinely ends in nothing,\u201d said Erik Olson, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who works on drinking water protection.<\/p>\n

Still, some who are urging the government to do more to stop plastic pollution say the announcement is a good start.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncluding it in the list would be the first step toward eventually regulating microplastics in public water supplies and hopefully this is not the last step,\u201d said Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator who now heads up Beyond Plastics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College, said that while the EPA is moving in the right direction, if the United States does not rein in the accelerating growth in plastic production, which leads to plastic pollution, it will make little difference. The US is participating in talks on a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution, but strongly opposes limits on plastic production.<\/p>\n

Food & Water Watch says the listing is important but it ultimately falls short of their call for monitoring. EPA uses the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule to collect data for contaminants that are suspected to be present in drinking water.<\/p>\n

The American Chemistry Council, an industry group, said it supports monitoring of microplastics in drinking water and research to better understand potential impacts, as long as the monitoring is standardized and consistent nationwide.<\/p>\n

The joint move from Kennedy and Zeldin comes as activists from Kennedy\u2019s Maha movement have forged fragile political ties with the EPA but expressed frustration with lack of action on their priorities, including pesticide regulation.<\/p>\n

The movement erupted earlier this year over an executive order from Donald Trump that is aimed in part at boosting the production<\/a> of a controversial herbicide ingredient known as glyphosate. Kennedy has said he was disappointed by the executive order but sees it as necessary for agricultural stability and national security.<\/p>\n

The EPA has teased a forthcoming Maha agenda that it says will address issues such as forever chemicals, plastic pollution, food quality, Superfund cleanups and lead pipes. In February, the EPA press secretary, Brigit Hirsch, told the Associated Press that the agenda was in its \u201cfinal stages\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kennedy, whose 2024 independent presidential campaign focused in part on tackling plastic pollution, also announced a $144m effort to better measure, understand and remove microplastics that have made their way into human bodies.<\/p>\n

Systematic Targeting of Microplastics (Stomp) will involve building tools to detect and quantify microplastics, mapping how they move through the body, and ultimately removing microplastics from the human body, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t treat what we cannot measure. We cannot regulate what we don\u2019t understand,\u201d Kennedy said at the EPA on Thursday. \u201cTogether, we\u2019re going to define the risk, build the tools and act on the evidence regarding microplastics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maha leaders, farmers and organizations told Zeldin in a letter on Tuesday to tackle the health impacts of pesticides, plastics and Pfas chemicals. On plastics, they said the agenda must include monitoring for microplastics, establishing new limits on microplastics exposure and placing a moratorium on permitting for new or expanding plastic production facilities.<\/p>\n

David Murphy, a former fundraiser for Kennedy\u2019s presidential campaign, now works with the Maha movement on its priorities as the founder of United We Eat. Murphy said it was encouraging to see progress on microplastics, but criticized Zeldin for approving new pesticides during his tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one step forward, two steps back at the EPA,\u201d he said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Safe Drinking Water Act, as amended in 1996, directed the EPA to publish the Contaminant Candidate List every five years. After, the agency must determine whether to regulate at least five contaminants from the list. In five cycles of the process, the EPA has determined that no regulatory action is appropriate or necessary for most of the contaminants it considered.<\/p>\n

Trump has sought fewer environmental rules. In May, the EPA announced<\/a> plans to rescind limits on some less common \u201cforever chemicals\u201d in drinking water, roughly a year after the Biden administration finalized the first-ever national standards. The NRDC and other environmental advocates are fighting to keep the entire Biden-era rule in place.<\/p>\n

The new draft list includes\u202ffour\u202fcontaminant\u202fgroups \u2013\u202fmicroplastics, pharmaceuticals,\u202f Pfas and\u202fdisinfection byproducts \u2013 as well as\u202f75 chemicals\u202fand\u202fnine microbes\u202fthat may be found\u202fin drinking water, the EPA said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed on Thursday to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-511640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}