Earlier this week, The Charleston Gazette first reported that the Bush administration planned to issue the C8 health advisory less than a week before President-elect Barack Obama is scheduled to take office.
Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water, emphasized Friday that the agency's health advisory was "provisional" and could be updated based on additional information.
"We are focused on PFOA and other PFCs, and are looking at them in the context of candidates for future regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act," Grumbles said.
Grumbles said EPA's action "was meant to be a rapid response to an urgent situation," after agency officials learned that C8-contaminated sewage sludge had been dumped onto farmland in Decatur, Ala.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is advising people to reduce consumption of water that contains more than 0.4 parts per billion of C8, also known as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA.
But water companies are not required to test for the chemical, so most consumers have no idea if C8 is in their water.
And where C8 has been found, EPA has generally not made specific recommendations for reducing exposure. EPA has also not ordered alternative water supplies be provided based on what experts and advocates say is a more important measure: A limit to protect people who drink water with very small concentrations of C8 over a long period of time.
"We'd like to see evidence that the agency is going to develop a scientific-based limit for long-term exposure," said Olga Naidenko, a scientist who studies chemical safety issues for the Washington-based Environmental Working Group.
In West Virginia, DuPont Co. has used C8 since the 1950s at its Washington Works plant south of Parkersburg. C8 is a processing agent used to make Teflon and other nonstick products, oil-resistant paper packaging and stain-resistant textiles.
Around the world, researchers are finding that people have C8 and other perfluorochemicals, or PFCs, in their blood at low levels. People can be exposed by drinking contaminated products, eating tainted food, or through food packaging and stain-proof agents on furniture or carpet. Evidence is mounting about the chemical's dangerous effects, but regulators have yet to set a binding federal limit for emissions or human exposure.
