Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Drinking Water: Do PFAS have an ethnic accent?
Professor Teodoro’s research sheds light on the real-world challenges of policy implementation, showing how even well-designed environmental regulations can produce unequal outcomes due to resource limitations in the public sector. His research reveals the tough tradeoffs that policymakers face, especially when designing plans to address contamination in drinking water. This is an essential discussion for anyone interested in understanding how to make environmental policies not only more effective but also more equitable.
—Mark Buntaine, Professor, Bren School
Watch a recording of this talk here
ABSTRACT
In 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced contaminant limits for six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). This study uses data from EPA’s Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule to identify the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic correlates of PFAS contamination in drinking water. Analysis reveals patterns of PFAS contamination much different from previous environmental justice analyses of SDWA compliance. PFAS levels above regulatory thresholds correlate positively with the share of a water system’s Black population, but negatively with Hispanic population. The risk of PFAS also correlates positively with income and population density, indicating that, on average, PFAS in drinking water is a greater risk in more affluent urban communities than in poorer rural communities. These results illustrate the complexities—and troubling tradeoffs—that arise in efforts to achieve environmental justice in drinking water. New federal regulations have the potential to improve racial equity by reducing Black Americans’ disproportionate exposure to contaminated drinking water. However, those efforts will also disproportionately benefit relatively affluent urban communities and will do little to reduce rural poor and Hispanic people’s disproportionate exposure to contaminated drinking water. In a world of limited governance resources, time and money spent on PFAS rule compliance are time and money not spent eliminating other contaminants from public water supplies. Attaining justice in drinking water will force regulators to make tough political choices.
BIO
Manny Teodoro is a Professor of Public Affairs who works at the intersection of politics, public policy, and public management. His research focuses on U.S. environmental policy and implementation, including empirical analyses of environmental justice. His latest book, “The Profits of Distrust” (2022, Cambridge), argues that basic services are the bedrock of government legitimacy, and links the meteoric rise of the bottled water industry to declining trust in American democracy.
In addition, Teodoro pursues a line of applied research on utility management, policy, and finance. He has developed novel methods for analyzing utility rate equity and affordability, and he works directly with governments and water sector leaders across the United States to address policy problems.
Teodoro also studies public management and bureaucratic politics, emphasizing labor markets as political phenomena and predictors of organizational performance. His award-winning first book, “Bureaucratic Ambition” (2011, Johns Hopkins), argues that ambition shapes administrators’ decisions to innovate and engage in politics, with important consequences for innovation and democratic governance.