Achi news desk-
As the United States sets its first ever national limits on toxic chemicals in drinking water, researchers say Canada is lagging behind in regulations.
Still, they acknowledged that Canada is making progress in trying to reduce and prevent water contamination in the country.
From carpeting to non-stick cookware, so-called forever chemicals, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been widely found in consumer products since the 1950s.
These chemicals are designed to be so strong that they do not break down fully in the environment. They are used to make products that are non-sticky, oil and water repellent and resistant to temperature changes.
Growing evidence shows the presence of PFAS in Canadian freshwater and drinking water sources, according to Health Canada. Studies have linked PFAS to serious health problems, such as cancer, low birth weight and liver disease.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its drinking water regulation for six PFASs last week. Under the new regulation, utilities are required to permanently limit certain chemicals, including two common types—perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)—to four parts per trillion, or four nanograms per liter. In addition, water providers must test for these PFAS and warn the public when levels are too high.
Similarly, Health Canada proposed new limits for PFAS in drinking water in February 2023. There are currently drinking water quality guidelines for PFOA and PFOS in Canada.
Under current guidelines, the limit is 200 ng/L for PFOA, which is 50 times greater than the US limit of 4 ng/L. At 600 ng/L for PFOS, the maximum allowed in Canada for this type of chemical is forever 150 times the US limit.
In light of the changes south of the border, CTVNews.ca asked Health Canada if there were any plans to change the limits, or to follow America’s lead on the matter.
In a recent email to CTVNews.ca, Health Canada spokesperson Mark Johnson said the department has proposed a drinking water objective with a much lower limit of 30 ng/L for all PFAS found in drinking water.
Canadian strategy
Despite the fact that Canada’s proposed drinking water limit for PFAS is about eight times higher than those for the United States, many factors are likely at play, according to an expert.
Satinder Kaur Brar, professor of civil engineering and the James and Joanne Love Chair in Environmental Engineering at York University in Toronto, has been doing work for the past few decades on various contaminants including PFAS in waters and wastewater.
“The US EPA has definitely taken a leap forward in this direction,” he said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca, noting that international standards do not exist. “So I would say, if we have established higher limits here for Canadian citizens, we are definitely exposing them more, or making them more vulnerable to these chemicals.”
Canada’s recently proposed limits only deal with drinking water, not other contaminated sources such as food, soils, sediments and air, Brar noted. She points to political leaders as being to blame for what some may see as loopholes in the proposed policy changes.
“I would say that the political will is also lacking because political will also plays an important role in bringing out these regulations,” he said. “We’ve left out many important environmental sections, which are all interconnected and contribute to the overall presence of … PFAS in water.”
‘Harsh enough’?
And when it comes to laws and regulations, a senior environmental law researcher and paralegal says Canada has made great strides in tackling the problem, but is lagging behind some countries like the United States.
“So even though the US EPA numbers are set much lower than Canada’s, what we see in Canada is at least a continuation of the current guidelines, and that’s not a bad thing,” Fe de Leon, with the Canadian Environmental Law Society in Toronto, said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca.
“The question is whether it is strict enough to deal with the scope of the effects these chemicals have on the environment and especially human health.”
Johnson Health Canada said the final drinking water objective for PFAS will be published later this year, replacing the current guidelines. Provinces and territories use these guidelines and objectives to create drinking water quality requirements for all Canadians, he said.
Provincial and territorial authorities have been monitoring treated drinking water in some regions, and the federal government has been monitoring PFAS in fresh water since 2013, Johnson added.
“Current data regarding PFAS in Canadian freshwater and drinking water sources suggest that PFAS are present at levels below the new proposed objective,” Johnson said in an emailed statement. “However, concentrations of PFAS in freshwater and drinking water can be higher near facilities that use large amounts of these chemicals, locations where firefighting foams containing PFAS have been used to extinguish fires, and landfill sites and waste water treatment plants.”
‘The biggest issue’
A big problem is the lack of knowledge about the chemicals forever affecting Canadians, many of whom may not be aware of what these chemicals are, where they are found and the impact they can have on our health and the world around us.
“The biggest issue right now is to fully disclose how many of these chemicals are actually in the Canadian market and are being released into the environment,” Brar said. “We don’t have a good handle on that.”
Over the past few years, he said, more sites across Canada have been “significantly impacted” by PFAS. “So it is absolutely necessary that the government moves forward and takes action on these chemicals, and creates their own strategy.”
A chemical engineering professor who leads a team conducting research into the effects of these chemicals says he believes Canada and the US have made their boldest moves yet to address the problem.
“The net effect is that the United States and Canada are trying to limit… these chemicals in drinking water to levels that are extremely low and barely measurable,” said Franco Berruti, director of the Alternative Resources Chemicals and Fuels Institute. at Western University. in London, Ont., in a video interview with CTVNews.ca. “At the end of the day … they will have the same effect.”
Barriers to answer
Berruti said there is no simple solution to the problem of controlling the impact of chemicals forever. One of the obstacles to their regulation is the many unknowns about PFAS.
“It’s not just a question of two or three chemicals that are considered toxic that one would regulate. But we’re talking about thousands and thousands of these chemicals. We don’t even know how to analyze these chemicals,” he said.
The technologies that exist to reduce or eliminate PFAS “are very limited,” Berruti added.
Scientists are still studying different aspects of the problem, including investigating which chemicals are forever more problematic and measurable.
Out of more than 12,000 types of PFAS, Berruti estimates that only 40 can be measured.
“Setting the limits without having the means to measure the … extremely low concentrations means nothing until the methodologies are there to show that those limits are being met,” he said.
Although Canada does not produce PFAS, Berruti said, the country should closely monitor imports of products contaminated with the chemicals.
Industry concerns
Health advocates applauded the US move to create its first drinking water limits on PFAS, but the news was not universally celebrated.
Among the concerns raised were those from water utilities, who said customers will end up paying more for water because treatment systems are expensive to install.
Steps taken in Canada have also been challenged and criticized.
In May 2023, Health Canada published a draft recommendation to label PFAS, an entire class of chemicals, as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
Cassie Barker, toxics program manager at Environmental Defense, said in March that it is important to label the entire class, not just each individual substance, as toxic, The Canadian Press reported. When Canada designated and banned some types of PFAS in 2012, Barker said, it became a “whack-a-mole” situation, because other products used to replace them also posed health risks.
In response to the proposed toxic designation of PFAS, the Canadian Chemical Industry Association wrote to Environment and Climate Change Canada in June 2023 requesting that PFAS not be labeled as toxic as a whole class of substances, and instead be designated on a case-by-case basis. basis, based on proven risk.
PFAS currently used by Canadian industry have not been shown to be “high risk” and sweeping bans could cause economic hardship to the industry, he wrote in his letter.
In the United States, growing awareness has led to lawsuits against manufacturers.
For example, 3M settled a series of lawsuits last June that could exceed US$12.5 billion, involving more than 300 US municipalities where the chemicals were found in drinking water. The company said it plans to stop making PFAS by 2025.
In the same month, DuPont de Nemours Inc. arrived. and Chemours Co. spinoffs. and Corteva Inc. US$1.18 billion settlement over similar complaints from around 300 drinking water providers.
And legal action has taken place in Canada as well.
According to business law firm Osler, a class action was certified in 2021 against the National Research Council of Canada over PFAS in the surface water and groundwater at the NRC facility in Mississippi Mills, Ont.
With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press
