The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a new set of stricter drinking water standards for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, which could require treatment options for at least one water district on Martha’s Vineyard.

The first nationwide regulations would set a threshold for the so-called forever chemicals at 4 parts per trillion, a much higher bar than how Massachusetts currently regulates PFAS. The standards would require action from public water suppliers if the drinking-water standard is not met. Some wells on the Vineyard have recently surpassed the proposed threshold.

A public water well maintained by the Oak Bluffs water district measured in October last year — the latest test available to the public — had a reading of 9.09 parts per trillion of PFAS, about 5 parts per trillion over the EPA’s proposed threshold.

The well is on Lagoon Pond off Barnes Road, and water officials say that testing at the well has fluctuated over past reporting periods, sometimes not detecting PFAS at all.

Oak Bluffs water district Assistant Superintendent Greg Dankert says they are aware of the levels, and are keeping track of how and when the EPA rules might be rolled out. He says it’s unclear now if the new EPA rules would force the district to shut the well down over one reading, or if the regulations would consider an average from tests taken over a year. Either way, Dankert says the water in Oak Bluffs is safe to drink.

But the EPA’s new national standard is raising alarms for some Oak Bluffs town officials.

Ewell Hopkins, chair of the town’s planning board, says the proposed regulations are a wake-up call for elected town officials and town staff to work together to address PFAS contamination.

“We have to make some tough decisions right now about what we are going to allow and what we will discourage in terms of land use,” Hopkins said. “We don’t have the large industry to point the blame. We can’t sue our way out of this. We are going to have to start funding the remediation and taking other steps.”

Hopkins says the discussion could be about using less water and potentially shutting the Lagoon well down, or adding treatment options.

Treatment of a municipal well would be an infrastructure project that could cost millions of dollars, as was the case in many Cape Cod towns in recent years.

Chatham voters last year approved about $6 million for the treatment of two wells; Mashpee and Falmouth have both had municipal wells shut down due to contamination from a former fire training academy on Joint Base Cape Cod; the wells were not reopened until filter systems were installed and paid for by the federal government.

“There are no easy decisions ahead of us,” Hopkins said. “The only question is how brave are our elected officials to make these tough decisions.”

According to reporting from the state Environmental and Energy Affairs department, Edgartown and Tisbury water districts have not detected PFAS in their public water systems. The state requires regular testing.

But wells in other towns on the Island have. According to the state environmental department data, a reading in Aquinnah — listed by the state as Aquinnah Restaurant — had a reading of 4.1 parts per trillion and 4.00 at a well in 2021, along with several other readings that were non-detect for PFAS; Chilmark had a reading of 4.3 parts per trillion at a well in 2021, and then 3.43 in 2022; and West Tisbury had a reading of 2.8 parts per trillion at a well. Health officials in those towns did not immediately respond for comment.

The EPA announced the new proposal on Tuesday, with officials saying the decision was made to pursue a stricter standard to protect public health.

The agency says it’s “a major step” in addressing PFAS pollution, “leveraging the latest science and complementing state efforts to limit PFAS by proposing to establish legally enforceable levels for six PFAS known to occur in drinking water.”

It’s also meant to implement a uniform set of standards.

“Communities across this country have suffered far too long from the ever-present threat of PFAS pollution. That’s why President Biden launched a whole-of-government approach to aggressively confront these harmful chemicals, and EPA is leading the way forward,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan was quoted in a press release on Tuesday, when the new proposal was announced. “EPA’s proposal to establish a national standard for PFAS in drinking water is informed by the best available science, and would help provide states with the guidance they need to make decisions that best protect their communities. This action has the potential to prevent tens of thousands of PFAS-related illnesses, and marks a major step toward safeguarding all our communities from these dangerous contaminants.”

The EPA will open up the proposal to a round of public comment before any regulations are put into place, but the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection would be required to meet the new federal standard, or make it even more strict. The state currently has some of the strictest water standards in the country, at 20 parts per trillion.

MassDEP spokesperson Edmond Coletta issued a statement applauding the federal government for its proposal. “We will evaluate the impacts of these new draft values as EPA works toward a final rule,” the statement reads. “MassDEP is committed to continuing our nation-leading efforts to combat PFAS contamination in public drinking water, private wells, and other sources of exposure, and will continue to provide funding and technical assistance to water systems working to address PFAS contamination.”

Some local researchers who have studied PFAS contamination say the decision by the EPA is a wake-up call for the products we consume and for protecting our water sources.

Laurel Schaider, a senior scientist at the Silent Spring Institute, a Massachusetts-based institute, says that the EPA last year proposed new health guidelines for PFAS in drinking water, basically saying that any amount of the emerging contaminants was not a safe amount. Guidelines aren’t enforceable. The most recent 4.0 parts per trillion standard is not as strict as the guidelines, she said. That was done partly because laboratories have a difficult time measuring the chemicals at a smaller amount than 4.0. But she says it shows what the EPA thinks of PFAS in our drinking water.

“As we learn more and more about these chemicals, we learn more about how bad they are for our health than we originally thought,” Schaider said. “I think this is a wake-up call that many water supplies are vulnerable to pollutants.”

The EPA is requesting input on the proposal from all stakeholders, including the public, water system managers, and public health professionals. Comments may be submitted through the public docket, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2022-0114, at regulations.gov.

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