The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly backtracked on a claim that the US has phased out two of the most dangerous Pfas compounds – Pfoa and Pfos.

The EPA has found that virtually no level of exposure to either in drinking water is safe, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies Pfoa as “carcinogenic to humans” and Pfos as “possibly carcinogenic”. Still, the EPA is allowing Houston-based Inhance to produce containers from which Pfoa has been found to leach at high levels into the containers’ contents. The company makes up to 200m barriers annually for plastic containers used across the US economy.

The containers present an “ongoing serious and ongoing threat to public health,” said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist who is now science policy director with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit.

Inhance has denied that the chemical leaches out in measurable levels, and told the Guardian in a statement that any Pfoa from its products are an “impurity”.

The EPA has written that the company is “manufacturing“ PFAS.

The “phase-out” was put in place after documents made public during landmark early 2000s litigation on DuPont’s Pfas pollution in West Virginia laid bare the ubiquitous chemicals’ dangers and serious health risks. In 2015, facing intense pressure to act, the EPA reached an agreement with eight Pfas producers to “phase out” production of Pfoa and Pfos, a similar chemical produced by 3M.

Though the agency stopped short of a ban, the “phase out” was viewed as major progress on reining in Pfas pollution. Officials often repeated the claim that the chemicals had been phased out, giving the impression that they were no longer produced or used in the US.

Last month, the EPA quietly changed wording on its website that claimed Pfoa and Pfos had been phased out.. In fact, both have been produced in the US this whole time, and at levels that independent science suggest are quite high.

The EPA site previously stated: “The manufacture and import of Pfoa has also been phased out in the United States.”

It now reads: “Quantities of Pfoa may be produced, imported, and used by companies … ”

The change was made in response to a complaint filed by Peer, which pointed out that the EPA was allowing Pfoa to be produced in the US. Under the Information Quality Act, data and information made public by federal agencies be complete and accurate.

“They were giving the false impression and saying, ‘Nothing to see here because Pfoa is not being produced in the US,’” Bennett told the Guardian. “But that was demonstrably false, and now they have admitted it.”

An epidemiological panel convened during the West Virginia DuPont case found Pfoa and Pfos likely causes cancer, heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease. The panel’s findings were the scientific basis for the phase-out.

The EPA did not immediately provide a comment to the Guardian. Inhance in its statement to The Guardian stressed that there was never a ban in place and it was not one of the eight companies that agreed to stop producing Pfoa.

The reversal underscores why phase-outs are inadequate, and the EPA needs to put in place bans, Bennett said.

“If you have a chemical and there’s no safe level of it, then why on earth would you allow it to be manufactured?” she said. “This all makes perfect sense if you understand the reality that the EPA is an arm of industry, especially under the Trump administration.”

The EPA’s reversal marks the latest twist in a six-year legal battle over Inhance’s Pfoa-infused containers.

The EPA seemed unaware that Pfas were being “manufactured” during plastic container barrier production until late 2020 testing by Peer found high levels of Pfas in pesticides stored in Inhance bins. The subsequent EPA investigation unearthed wide-scale contamination of plastic containers, prompting the agency to subpoena Inhance for information.

It publicly reminded the plastics industry that companies must submit for a safety review if they manufacture Pfoa. Inhance dismissed the agency’s evidence and claimed its containers did not leech Pfoa, but the EPA disagreed, again ordering Inhance in March 2022 to “immediately cease” production.

Two weeks later, Inhance put out a press release stating that its products did not “impart” Pfoa, and it did not cease production.

Subsequent EPA testing found the containers still contained Pfoa. Facing legal pressure from Peer, the EPA by December 2023 again ordered Inhance to stop making the containers. That ban was overturned by a federal appeals court. Peer later sued, but the case was dismissed because a federal judge ruled that the group lacked standing.

In its statement, Inhance said that it made adjustments to reduce by 90% the level of Pfoa “impurities”.

“Published peer-reviewed third-party risk assessments conclude that estimated exposure does not present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment,” Inhance chief commercial officer Patricia van Ee wrote. “We have shared our process data with EPA throughout its review.”

The EPA appears to have given up on enforcing the phase out and legally pressuring Inhance. Still, the EPA maintained on its website that Pfoa had been phased out of production, drawing the formal complaint from Peer.

In a response dated 18 September, EPA assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, Douglas Troutman, wrote: “In response to Peer’s request, the EPA is updating its websites.”

The update also notes that Pfos is in US production in some “limited, ongoing uses”.

“This rare touch of candor by EPA is welcome, but it does not address the free flow of toxic Pfas saturating our food, water, and soil,” Bennett said. “Now that EPA has admitted that these two legacy Pfas are still manufactured in the US, it is past time to take effective enforcement action.”