Who Is Dumping PFAS? Nobody Really Knows

Photo credit: NP_Kanpur_34, Flickr (Creative Commons License)

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On the banks of the Mississippi river in Cordova, Illinois, is a factory run by chemical industry giant 3M that makes adhesives, fire fighting foam, and other products -- using highly toxic per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Despite the fact that PFAS are very harmful to people and persist indefinitely in the environment, state and federal agencies set no limits on 3M Cordova’s discharges of PFAS into the air or water. Illinois only requires 3M to collect and analyze samples quarterly from the wastewater drains that dump directly into the Mississippi River.

3M monitoring suggests that the company released between 100 and 1211 pounds of nine different PFAS chemicals into the Mississippi each year since 2013. Despite being one of just 13 sites the EPA identified as producing and formulating PFAS chemicals domestically, the inner workings of the company remain a mystery to the general public. And the EPA’s new PFAS reporting rules in its annual Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) do too little to illuminate the situation. 3M Cordova’s reported no releases of TRI-listed PFAS chemicals in 2020. This is because the 2020 TRI rules require reporting for a limited number of PFAS, exempt facilities that manufacture, process or use fewer than 100 pounds per year or an alternative threshold exemption for facilities that release less than 500 pounds per year. EPA also allows an exemption for “de-minimis” uses, when a chemical is less than 1 percent of a total mixture. If the EPA doesn’t quickly strengthen its reporting requirements, 3M emissions could continue undocumented for years to come.

The PFAS pollution crisis is a glaring example of the national shortcomings in regulation of toxic chemicals. First invented in the 1950s, and marketed widely in consumer products for their unique water and stain resistant properties. PFAS are added to hundreds of common household products. These same chemical properties make the chemicals persist indefinitely in the environment. Many build up in the bodies of people or wildlife.

Despite long-standing evidence of their intense toxicity to people and wildlife, the EPA has been unwilling or unable to halt the use of PFAS. The EPA has also failed to take preventative action to study, monitor, and control the thousands of related chemicals that industry giants invented as replacements for older generations of PFAS. Three such giants -- 3M, DuPont, and spinoff company Chemours -- have set aside billions of dollars to settle future legal claims related to historic and ongoing PFAS pollution, but have largely evaded basic reporting and pollution control laws to date.

The identity and uses of individual PFAS chemicals is shrouded in secrecy. For example, a company buying PFAS to use in a product they are making  is typically not told about the specific chemicals in the mixture. PFAS were not included in the chemical reporting required by the EPA in its annual TRI until Congress mandated their inclusion in the 2020 military appropriations bill. Congress specified the initial list of 172 PFAS that would need to be reported in 2020. It also mandated that the EPA review all other PFAS and add them to the list of reportable chemicals by the end of 2021.

As the deadline draws near, we took a detailed look at the 2020 TRI data, identifying the impact of several major shortcomings in the current reporting system. EPA’s list of reportable PFAS chemicals is wildly incomplete. Those listed in 2020 were mostly phased out of commerce. A number of loopholes make it easier for companies to evade reporting requirements. Also rules like the 100-pound reporting threshold and 1 percent de-minimis exemption for PFAS chemicals sold in mixtures, mean that many polluters will be able to skip reporting for these highly toxic and persistent compounds. EPA or Congress could fix this.

Only 38 facilities reported PFAS emissions in 2020 -- not including most of the most intense production and use sites. Only three of the 13 facilities the EPA identified as making and formulating PFAS chemicals reported any releases of listed PFAS. None of the industries the EPA has identified as especially in need of new wastewater control rules -- metal plating, food packaging, and textile production -- reported. While the historic and ongoing uses of PFAS in firefighting has contaminated military bases, airports, petroleum refineries, and other industrial sites, these industries also did not disclose any releases of listed chemicals to landfills, rivers, or sewer drains. 

With EPA Administrator Michal Regan pledging to “use every tool in the toolbox” to control harmful PFAS pollution, the EPA must start by requiring transparent reporting of PFAS releases. This means listing all PFAS in the TRI, and removing loopholes like the 100 pound reporting threshold and de-minimis exemption. Until it does so, federal and state regulators will lack the basic use and emissions data needed to create stronger permit limits, investigate contamination, and clean it up. It is time to break from secrecy and alert the public to places where PFAS releases to air, water and landfills could threaten their health.