PROVIDENCE — The Trump administration announced last month it was weakening federal restrictions on four different kinds of forever chemicals found in drinking water.

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known by the acronym PFAS or the phrase “forever chemicals,” are a huge family of industrial chemicals that refuse to break down naturally in the environment.

The Biden administration in 2024 put the first federal restrictions on the chemicals in place after the Environmental Protection Agency found exposure to them was linked to diseases ranging from prostate and kidney cancers to reduced immune response to decreased fertility.

Under the new rules, the EPA will rescind its limiting regulations around four chemicals: perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA), and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS). The EPA will then restart its rule-making process to impose new limits.

Limits for PFOA and PFAS would remain untouched at 4 parts per trillion (ppt) each.

Those limits are stricter than the state laws governing forever chemicals in Rhode Island. In 2022, the General Assembly passed the state’s first laws imposing thresholds for PFAS in drinking water. Under the law, all public water systems were required to test for PFAS; private well water was exempt from testing.

Rhode Island set PFAS limits at 20 parts per trillion, much higher than the EPA limit set later. Any water system that tests higher than that limit is required to enter into a consent agreement with the state Department of Health for remediation.

For now, those limits will be safe from the EPA’s rollback of federal limits on PFAS.

“The short answer is that the impact here should be minimal because we have our own state limit,” said Joseph Wendelken, DOH’s public information officer. “Our existing regulations and previous action on PFAS have set us up well for success in the future.“

Wendelken said the state’s existing treatment systems for PFAS already installed in Rhode Island remove the compounds associated with PFAS tested under the law. DOH had begun proactively testing public water systems identified as susceptible to PFAS starting in 2017.

In March 2024, DOH officials released a report on where Rhode Island drinking systems were complying with the new PFAS testing and limits. By that time, 100% of community public water systems and 99% of non-transient, non-community water systems had tested their supplies for PFAS contamination.

Of the 170 total public water systems tested for PFAS, 156 systems were below the interim state limits for PFAS of 20 ppt. The majority of systems tested, 98 in total, detected no forever chemicals in their systems whatsoever.

Fourteen systems tested positive for PFAS above 20 ppt, with three systems testing higher than 70 ppt for contamination.

Two of the water systems, the Ladd Center and Exeter Job Corps, were found in Exeter, with the third detected at Bruin Plastics in Burrillville. DOH issued all three water systems with “do not drink” water advisories. That advisory remains in place only for Bruin Plastics, while an additional one for Captain Isaac Paine School in Foster was issued.

The exact source of PFAS contamination on these water systems remains unknown, but there’s some likely culprits. PFAS has been found for decades in common household products, ranging from clothing to packaging, cookware, carpeting and other products.

Any household product that is stain-, grease- or water-resistant has typically been treated with some kind of forever chemical at some part in its manufacturing process. It’s why lawmakers in 2024 passed the PFAS in Consumer Products Ban Act of 2024, prohibiting the sale or distribution for sale in a wide variety of products.

The bans began last year with a ban on Class B firefighting foam known to contain intentionally added PFAS chemicals, and will phase in more products like cookware, cosmetics and firefighting personal protective equipment starting next year. Artificial turf and outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions without a PFAS label will be banned from the state in 2029.

A November 2023 report from the Department of Environmental Management identified six major developed sites where PFAS contamination is likely to be found. Current or former Department of Defense sites (such as Naval Station Newport), and fire stations made the list thanks to their well-known use of aqueous film-foaming foam (AFFF), a firefighting substance known to contain PFAS chemicals intentionally.

The other four areas include sites more traditionally associated with heavy pollution like Superfund sites, textile mills, landfills and dumps, as well as wastewater treatment facilities.