EPA Heeds MAHA’s Call to Classify Microplastics, Antidepressants as Drinking Water Contaminants

Move over, fluoride: The MAHA movement has set its sights on something else in American drinking water, and it’s got the Trump administration on its side.

Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced Thursday that the agency would classify microplastics, “forever chemicals,” disinfection byproducts and drugs like antidepressants and antibiotics as drinking water contaminants.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also announced that the Department of Health and Human Services would invest $144 million into studying the potential health risks of microplastics.

“We are dealing with a measurable and growing presence inside the human body,” Kennedy said. “The science has not kept pace with the scale of exposure.”

The HHS initiative, called Systematic Targeting of Microplastics, or STOMP, will “affordably and precisely measure microplastics in the human body” by building a 15-minute, $50 clinical test, said Alicia Jackson, the director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.

The announcement is a win for both activists within the “Make America Healthy Again” movement and the environmental advocacy mainstream — though tempered by the Trump administration’s reticence to act on other environmental issues, including pesticides.

Late last year, Zeldin met with members of the MAHA movement who were so angered by the EPA deregulating certain harmful chemicals that they circulated a petition calling for Zeldin’s dismissal.

Zeldin called the new classification a “direct response” to the concerns of “millions of Americans.”

“I can’t think of an issue that hits closer to home than the safety of their drinking water,” Zeldin said.

Last month, Zeldin said the EPA would adopt its own MAHA agenda. In response, a group of MAHA activists sent the EPA a letter outlining the steps they believed the agency should take to reduce “the chemical burden on American families.”

Included on that list: “Monitor the levels of microplastics in drinking water across the country and make the findings accessible to the public.”

The new drinking water contaminant classification is part of a new draft of the EPA’s Contaminant Candidate List. The document is now subject to a 60-day public comment period. If approved, it would allow the agency to direct more funding and research toward understanding the potential harms of microplastics, drugs and PFAS chemicals in drinking water.

But being included on the EPA contaminant list does not set any limits on what amount of each contaminant is allowed in drinking water. That can only be done though a separate regulatory process.

Jessica Kramer, the EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Water, said the agency is in “the early stages of research on methods to detect microplastics.”

The EPA must consult with its independent Science Advisory Board before finalizing the list, which it expects to be signed by the administrator by Nov. 17, according to an agency press release.