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On April 10, 2024, the U.S. EPA released its federally
enforceable drinking water limits for certain toxic PFAS
“forever chemicals” under the federal Safe Drinking Water
Act. Taft partner, author, and advocate Rob Bilott stated,
“today, we can celebrate a huge victory for public health in
this country. The U.S. EPA is moving forward to protect drinking
water across the United States by adopting federally enforceable
limits on some of the most toxic, persistent, and bioaccumulative
chemicals ever found in our nation’s drinking water
supply.”
Bilott added, “today’s action by the EPA is the
culmination of decades of work to raise awareness of the global
threat to human health and the environment presented by these
man-made ‘forever chemicals.’ Today, we can celebrate that
the scientific facts and truth about the dangers posed by these
toxins have finally prevailed over the decades of corporate
cover-ups and misinformation campaigns designed to mislead and to
delay action to protect public health.”
According to Bilott, “I first alerted the U.S. EPA and our
federal government to the presence of PFAS in U.S. drinking water
supplies and asked that immediate steps be taken to address the
problem in a letter dated March 6, 2001 – more than 23 years
ago. It should never have taken this long to address such serious
threats to public health and our environment. But the PFAS story
has helped highlight the critical importance of making sure that
complete scientific information is promptly disclosed and made
available to our regulatory authorities, lawmakers, the scientific
community, and the public, and not manipulated and distorted by
those hoping to profit from hiding the truth.”
Taft and Bilott currently represent states, water providers, and
others all across the country who have been damaged by PFAS
contamination, and serve as plaintiffs’ Advisory Counsel in
multi-district litigation pending in South Carolina federal court
where thousands of cases have been consolidated dealing with harm
attributable to PFAS in certain firefighting foams, and where over
$13 billion in settlements with 3M and DuPont-related companies
have been approved for U.S. public drinking water providers.
With regard to that litigation, Bilott stated, “we have
worked for many years to make sure that the companies actually
responsible for contaminating our country’s drinking water with
PFAS are held responsible for the costs to address that
contamination – not the victims. Now that our litigation has
secured the largest drinking water settlements in U.S. history that
will make billions of dollars available to our nation’s
drinking water providers to address the PFAS problem, it is
critically important that we allow implementation of those
settlements to move forward without delay.”
In 2017, Bilott received the Right Livelihood Award (known as
the “Alternative Nobel Prize”) for his decades of work
uncovering the threat posed by PFAS “forever chemicals.”
This work is detailed in Bilott’s book, Exposure: Poisoned
Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle
Against DuPont, which story formed the basis of the 2019 film,
Dark Waters (starring Mark Ruffalo as Bilott), and was
featured in the 2018 documentary, The Devil We Know, the
2023 documentary, Burned: Protecting the Protectors, and
the upcoming new Australian documentary, Revealed: How To
Poison A Planet. Bilott is also a lecturer at the Yale School
of Public Health and serves on the boards of Less Cancer and Green
Umbrella.
Taft’s deep bench of experienced PFAS practitioners advise
clients on a wide array of issues across industrial sectors. These
matters range from advising businesses regarding PFAS in packaging
and products, representing and advising landfills, wastewater
treatment facilities, airports, governmental entities, and drinking
water utilities in civil and regulatory actions, investigating and
remediating PFAS impacts (including at closed CERCLA and RCRA
sites), addressing PFAS liability considerations in business
transactions, and prosecuting PFAS claims. Taft attorneys regularly
contribute to the PFAS Insights blog, providing
insight and analysis on important PFAS news and developments. Learn
more about Taft’s PFAS work here.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
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