ALBANY, N.Y. — Prized for its ability to make things super-slick, it was used for decades in the manufacture of Teflon pans, Gore-Tex jackets, ski wax, carpets and the linings of pizza boxes and microwave popcorn bags.

Now, with the suspected cancer-causing chemical PFOA being phased out in the U.S., it is still very much around, turning up in the water in factory towns across the country – most recently in upstate New York and Vermont – where it is blamed by residents for cancers and other maladies.

The latest cases have brought renewed demands that the Environmental Protection Agency regulate PFOA the way it does arsenic, lead and dozens of other contaminants, and set stringent, enforceable limits on how much of the substance can be in drinking water.

In their defense, EPA officials said that the agency has been considering for years whether regulations are needed for PFOA and related perfluorinated chemicals, but that it is a drawn-out testing and evaluation process dictated by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

For now, there are no mandatory limits on how much PFOA, also called C8, can be in drinking water.

Of 4,764 water supplies surveyed by the EPA in 2013, 103 systems in 29 states had trace amounts of PFOA, but none exceeded 400 parts per trillion, EPA’s advisory level for short-term exposure. Seven had levels slightly over 100 ppt, the new advisory level for long-term exposure that the EPA is expected to set this spring.

But towns the size of Hoosick Falls, New York weren’t included in the testing. Its PFOA level of 600 ppt was discovered in village wells in 2014 only because residents, concerned about what they perceived as a high cancer rate in the plastics factory town, demanded testing. And on Tuesday, Vermont officials said a second round of water testing in North Bennington yielded readings of up to 2,730 ppt.