The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) risk management regulations following the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). EPA finalizes ban on trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene to protect public health and the environment. All consumer and many commercial applications of PCE were prohibited by the final EPA regulations, as were all uses of TCE. Under the TSCA, the regulations also mandate worker safeguards for all other applications. Following decades of insufficient protections and significant delays, the FDA hailed the regulations as a significant turning point for chemical safety.

The regulations are in line with President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, which aims to galvanize a nationwide campaign to eradicate cancer. Widely used as industrial solvents, TCE and PCE, sometimes known as tetrachloroethylene, have been connected to serious health problems such as bladder cancer, cancer of the kidney, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and heart abnormalities.

Health Risks and Environmental Impacts

In January 2023, EPA published its final updated risk evaluation for trichloroethylene (TCE) as a complete chemical. According to the federal authorities, 52 out of 54 circumstances of use that were examined helped determine that TCE poses an unjustifiable risk of harming human health when used as prescribed.

In June of this year, EnPro Industries and many other business entities were sued for unlawfully releasing TCE into the environment, polluting groundwater, soil, and air, and exposing employees to the chemicals that cause cancer. According to a statement from the legal firm Trial Lawyers for Justice, an auto parts manufacturer that was once owned and run by EnPro Industries poisoned the environment and residents of Water Valley, Mississippi, with TCE for more than 50 years.

It is claimed that the unlawful dumping created a “cancer cluster,” where the county’s cancer rates are greater than those of the neighboring regions.

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Historical Context and Advocacy Efforts

Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey applauded the action taken. He discussed the role played by Anne Anderson of Woburn, Massachusetts, who came to him and launched a campaign to prevent any more children from dying of cancer brought on by harmful chemicals, like her son Jimmy Anderson.

The Senator remarked that Anne’s efforts were instrumental in prompting the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent announcement, which brings great joy to be celebrated alongside her and all the communities that will benefit. The news relates to the finalization of a ban on the majority of uses of perchloroethylene and trichloroethylene, two substances that have been connected to immune system compromise, cancer, reproductive system harm, and neurotoxicity.

Jimmy, Anne Anderson’s 3-year-old son, was diagnosed with leukemia in 1972; other children in the neighborhood were also afflicted. People had been complaining about Woburn’s crimson, foul-smelling water for years, and she was certain that this was a contributing factor in the illness outbreak. EPA finalizes the ban on trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene as a culmination of advocacy efforts spanning decades to address these harmful effects.

Her actions started a protracted and torturous series of events that included a court lawsuit, a Harvard School of Public Health study, and investigations at the local, state, and federal levels. Two municipal wells in Woburn were closed by the state in 1979 when it was found that they were tainted with industrial chemicals.

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