The federal government is cracking down on those forever chemicals that end up in our drinking water and pose a threat to our health.

But new proposed standards to reduce those chemicals would mean that many water utilities here in New Jersey are no longer in compliance.

It's an issue that our contributing writer Jon Hurdle recently dove into and he joins me now.

Jon, great to talk with you as always.

Tell us about the new data that's come out and what forever chemicals are found to be in our drinking water that exceed some proposed new federal guidelines?

Well, what the EPA has done is in the course of a very extensive or at the beginning of a very extensive round of federal testing, they are testing for 29 types of of chemicals, these so-called forever chemicals and and that's that's significant because because that number significantly exceeds the number of PFAS chemicals that the DEP that state regulates.

And two of those particularly called PFOA and PFOS, are two of the most well known and widely understood chemicals commonly found in New Jersey And and they would be subject to much stricter levels in drinking water that is currently required by the state.

So right now, the state requires no more than 14 parts per trillion right the new federal guidelines would shift that down to four parts per trillion.

And in the data we saw that.

28 utilities in New Jersey would be outside of that.

Just talk about the timing and when this might roll out when the EPA changes might take effect.

Well, the expectation is that the EPA's changes are going to be finalized either at the end of this year or at the beginning of next year.

And at that point, New Jersey utilities would have to would have to comply with these new federal levels.

And that would mean that they would install they'd be they'd have to install a lot more filtration, which which is capable of removing these these chemicals.

But it's it's significantly expensive.

And that raises the prospect that that cost or at least some of those costs would be passed on to ratepayers.

We know that at least one utility here in New Jersey, I believe it's Ringwood, is considering a lawsuit against some of these manufacturers.

Is that a path that you think some of these companies will go or should go in order to defray some of the costs?

Well, yes, that one utility that you just referred to in Ridgewood is yesterday.

They filed suit against 3M and a number of other PFAS manufacturers back in 2020.

And that case is still pending.

And they're saying that they're faced with the costs of millions of dollars of additional cost just as a result of of having to comply with even the state regulations.

Now, of course, the as we know, the federal regulations, if and when they are finalized, will be will be even stricter than the state regulations.

And so so this is likely to to add further to the costs of utilities in New Jersey.

Yeah.

Cost is key.

Right.

Jon Hurdle, contributing writer for us here.

Thank you so much.

Good to talk with you.

You're welcome.