![]() ![]() scientists recommended additional testing. Those tests were not mandatory and there is no indication that they were carried out. identified serious health risks associated with chemicals proposed for use in oil and gas extraction, and yet allowed those chemicals to be used commercially with very lax regulation,” said Dusty Horwitt, researcher at Physicians for Social Responsibility. The documents, dating from the Obama administration, are heavily redacted because the E.P.A. allows companies to invoke trade-secret claims to keep basic information on new chemicals from public release. Even the name of the company that applied for approval is redacted, and the records give only a generic name for the chemicals: fluorinated acrylic alkylamino copolymer. However, an identification number for one of the chemicals issued by the E.P.A. data and identifies Chemours, previously Dupont, as the submitter. (Chemours did not exist until 2015, though it would have had the responsibility to report chemicals on behalf of its predecessor, Dupont.) document shows that a chemical with the same EPA-issued number was first imported for commercial use in November 2011. There is no public data that details where the E.P.A.-approved chemicals have been used.īut the FracFocus database, which tracks chemicals used in fracking, shows that about 120 companies used PFAS - or chemicals that can break down into PFAS the most common of which was “nonionic fluorosurfactant” and various misspellings - in more than 1,000 wells between 20 in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Nine of those wells were in Carter County, Okla., within the boundaries of Chickasaw Nation.īecause not all states require companies to report chemicals to the database, the number of wells could be higher. “This isn’t something I was aware of,” said Tony Choate, a Chickasaw Nation spokesman. spokesman, said that the chemicals in question were approved a decade ago, and that amendments to laws since then now required the agency to affirm the safety of new chemicals before they are allowed into the marketplace. He said the redactions in the documents were mandated by a statute protecting confidential business information. The Biden administration had made addressing PFAS a top priority, he added, for example by proposing a rule to require all manufacturers and importers of PFAS since 2011 to disclose more information on the chemicals, including their environmental and health effects.Ĭhemours, which has in the past agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle injury claims related to PFOA pollution, did not provide comment.Īn Exxon spokesman, in response to questions regarding whether it uses the chemicals, said, “We do not manufacture PFAS.”Ĭhevron did not respond to a request for comment.
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