Clean Water — News & Analysis

Double rollback: PFAS formally proposed for rescission as coal plant leachate exemption unveiled (May 19, 2026)

May 19, 2026 — The EPA announced two major water quality rollbacks in the span of a single week in May 2026. The agency formally published a proposed rule to officially rescind drinking water standards for four PFAS chemicals — GenX (HFPO-DA), PFNA, PFHxS, and PFBS — initiating the full notice-and-comment rulemaking process it had previously bypassed in its September 2025 court motion. The proposal also reiterated that compliance deadlines for PFOA and PFOS would be extended to 2031. Former EPA scientists called the rollback "an unprecedented move that may violate federal law" given the Safe Drinking Water Act's anti-backsliding provisions.

In the same week, the EPA released a separate proposed rule that would exempt coal plant leachate from mandatory wastewater treatment requirements — effectively allowing the contaminated groundwater that seeps out of coal ash dumps and flows into rivers, lakes, and streams to go untreated. Under the current standard, coal plants were required to pump and treat contaminated groundwater before it reached surface waters. The new proposal would only require treatment if the plant actively chose to pump groundwater as part of a voluntary cleanup — meaning naturally seeping contaminated groundwater would be exempt from treatment requirements.

Earthjustice estimated the coal leachate proposal, if finalized, would allow between 113 and 601 million pounds of pollutants per year to continue entering drinking water sources. Together, the two rollbacks — covering industrial water contamination and drinking water standards simultaneously — drew a striking parallel to the broader regulatory direction of the administration: environmental groups characterized the week's actions as a concerted dismantling of the water protection framework built over decades, arriving at the expense of the 200+ million Americans potentially exposed to PFAS in their drinking water and the nearly 30 million people relying on water sources already known to be contaminated by coal plant discharges.