Human Health Water Quality Criteria for PFAS
The U.S Environmental Protection Agency is using its Clean Water Act authority to develop national recommended water quality criteria for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in surface water that are protective of human health. As scientific data and information become available regarding the health effects of these chemicals, the agency intends to publish draft national recommended criteria for public comment, respond to the public comments, and then, finalize the recommended criteria. When finalized, states and authorized Tribes may consider the EPA’s recommended criteria when developing their own water quality standards, issuing permits that limit PFAS in wastewater discharges to water bodies, and developing restoration targets for water bodies impaired by PFAS. The EPA’s recommended criteria are not regulatory, nor do they impose legally binding requirements.
2024 Draft PFAS Human Health Water Quality Criteria
The EPA has derived draft national recommended water quality criteria protective of human health for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS). These draft criteria reflect the latest available scientific information including final human health toxicity values, draft bioaccumulation factors, draft relative source contributions, and updated drinking water ingestion rates.
The public comment period originally ended on February 24, 2025 but was extended for an additional 60 days, ending on April 25, 2025 at 11:59 PM. Due to a planned outage on Regulations.gov from April 25-28, 2025, the EPA extended the public comment period until April 29, 2025, at 11:59 PM. Submitted comments can be found on Regulations.gov (Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2024-0454).
Note: The EPA has issued a correction to a notice that appeared in the Federal Register on December 26, 2024. The notice of availability contained an incorrect value for the PFOA Organism Only HHC (Table 1, third column, second row). The correct value is 0.0036 ng/L. Note that the PFOA draft HHC document and the Technical Fact sheet contain the correct value.
- Federal Register Notice (December 26, 2024): Draft Human Health Water Quality Criteria for PFOA, PFOS, and PFBS
- Technical Fact Sheet: Draft Human Health Criteria for PFOA, PFOS, and PFBS (pdf)
- Document: Draft Human Health Water Quality Criteria for Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) (pdf)
- Document: Draft Human Health Water Quality Criteria for Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS) (pdf)
- Document: Draft Human Health Water Quality Criteria for Perfluorobutane Sulfonic Acid (PFBS) (pdf)
- Spreadsheet: Draft National Bioaccumulation Factors- Supplemental Information Table (xlsx)