The nonprofit organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is demanding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) retract a memo it released last year that reported the agency found no evidence of PFAS in its tests of commonly used pesticides. EPA initiated the tests after an environmental toxicologist found alarming levels of multiple PFAS in six out of 10 agricultural pesticides he tested.
Ever since the agency announced no evidence of contamination in the exact same chemicals, scientists and watchdog groups have been working to try to understand and explain the discrepancies. To that end, PEER submitted a FOIA request to EPA. The documents released showed the agency omitted the results of other tests that did find PFAS and left out a detail that could cast doubt on the validity of its tests. EPA maintains confidence in its results, telling PEER that the PFAS found in the other tests was attributable to “background levels” and that the detail on testing did not apply because of differences in testing sensitivity.