Where does the State stand on changing regulations? Why invest Billions, to only have known safety issues, such as PFOA /PFOS, or even Lead and other concerns to remain in the forefront ? Why such delays and hesitations?
State health officials are set to appear before the state’s Drinking Water Quality Council on Tuesday to present a plan for setting drinking water limits of 10 parts per trillion for chemicals PFOA and PFOS, according to Brad Hutton, deputy commissioner of the state’s Office of Public Health.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration first proposed the new water standards last fall and the state’s health commissioner gave his OK to proposed limits in July.
State health officials said they’ve waded through 5,000 public comments on the proposed regulations. The specifics of the regulations are still being worked out, though.
Environmental groups frustrated with the lack of an enforceable federal standard say it’s up to states like New York to act swiftly.
It’s unknown just how many communities in New York are providing drinking water that would violate the proposed standards for the three industrial chemicals the state is targeting.
Water districts are lobbying state officials to delay new limits for up to six years over concerns about liability and costly, untested filtration systems for 1,4-dioxane. They’re also seeking clean-up money from polluting companies, as well as the state and federal governments.
Many water districts are moving ahead with clean-up efforts anyways.
Some water customers will soon feel a pinch: The Suffolk County Water Authority this week announced it will be charging customers a $20 quarterly fee starting in January to help pay for treatment systems expected to cost $177 million.
COULD COMMUNITIES JUST GET WATER ELSEWHERE?
Next week, the state is set to meet with residents of the village of Hoosick Falls in an ongoing effort to address water supply contamination from a plastics company. State environmental officials have suggested five options, including a new groundwater source or connecting with the city of Troy’s water system.
It could be a better alternative than sinking money into treating water contaminated with 1,4 dioxane for decades, said Melville lawyer Nick Rigano.
“What else is in the water that we don’t know about?” said Rigano, the chairman of the Nassau County Bar Association’s environmental committee.
Pennsylvania
By Hannah Rappleye, David Douglas and Anne Thompson
WARMINSTER, Pa. — Hope Grosse and Joanne Stanton have fond memories of the childhood they shared in the Philadelphia suburbs. They spent their days outside playing football, riding bikes and — when the Blue Angels came to town — they watched the skies.
For kids in Horsham and Warminster townships, that was just one of the perks of growing up near two active military bases. Grosse, who lived across the street from the Naval Air Warfare Center in Warminster, remembers watching, with rapt attention, as Navy personnel torched airplanes during weekly fire drills and doused the flames with a white, bubbly foam.
"We would run up the street as the sirens went off and sit with our fingers in the fence," Grosse, 55, said. "It was fun. I don’t think we were worried about anything."
But the women share other kinds of memories. Family dogs that grew tumors and died, one after the other. Neighbors and family members, even their own children, diagnosed with serious medical conditions, from thyroid disease to cancer.
Then, in 2014, testing performed by the Environmental Protection Agency revealed groundwater near the bases had been contaminated with PFAS, a shorthand term for a family of chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances found in a long list of products, including cookware to firefighting foam used by the military.
For Grosse and Stanton, it was like a lightbulb went on.
"You can’t tell us that we drank contaminated water for 50 years and that it did nothing, that it didn’t have a health impact," Stanton, 54, said.
Often referred to as "forever chemicals," because they do not degrade in the environment, PFAS have been linked to various medical conditions and cancers in humans and animals, including kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disease, and effects on the immune system, among others.
The chemicals are not among the 90-odd contaminants regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Safe Drinking Water Act, so federal law does not require water utilities to test for them. But communities nationwide, many near military bases, have discovered levels of PFAS in their water hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times higher than the advisory level recommended by the agency.
As required by federal law, the Department of Defense has, and continues to, conduct cleanup actions at sites where PFAS was found, Chuck Prichard, spokesperson for the DOD, said.
"The Department remains committed to the health and safety of our men and women in uniform, their families, and the communities in which we serve," he added.
But overall federal response to the contamination problem has been slow, said Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a division of the National Institutes of Health.
Early this year, the EPA announced its plan to address PFAS contamination, including proposing regulatory determinations for two of the most common PFAS chemicals. This month, Congress dropped several key provisions from the National Defense Authorization Act that would have forced tighter regulation and cleanup of the chemicals.
"We see effects on liver, kidney, development, pregnancy, heart," Birnbaum said. "I think that’s where many people are frustrated. Where there’s pretty much growing, and I’d say fairly clear evidence of harm, EPA doesn’t have the flexibility to move rapidly."
Stanton agrees.
"We’ve heard about the action plan of the EPA," Stanton said. "In the meantime, we have millions of people that are drinking water that could be contaminated with a whole host of chemicals. Action is not coming fast enough."
PFAS is a family of chemicals defined by the presence of one or several carbon-flourine bonds, the strongest chemical bond in nature. The chemicals, which have a unique ability to repel water, grease and other substances, have been used in a variety of products since the 1940s, including Teflon cookware and Scotchgard. They are also a key ingredient in firefighting foam, used by the DOD since at least the 1970s.
That foam is the suspected source of PFAS contamination discovered on bases and surrounding communities, including at least 401 sites on active and former bases where the chemicals were released or a suspected discharge occurred. The military has launched an effort to clean up the contamination — a task expected to cost about $2 billion.
According to Prichard, the DOD spokesperson, the foam is “currently the only product that meets military specifications to quickly control fire so that human lives can be saved.”
But, he added, DOD now only uses it to respond to emergency events, and no longer uses it for land-based testing and training. The DOD has also invested in research to develop alternatives that do not contain any form of PFAS.
In Pennsylvania, tests commissioned by the military and performed by the EPA in 2014 revealed widespread PFAS contamination near the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove and the Naval Air Warfare Center in Warminster, which was shuttered in 1997 after being declared a Superfund site. One well topped off at 2,740 ppt (parts per trillion) — 39 times the limit of 70 ppt recommended by the EPA. Groundwater near the Willow Grove base was found to have PFAS at 329,500 ppt. Tests of the soil revealed PFAS levels at 98,000 parts per billion.
The contamination affected about 85,000 residents in Bucks and Montgomery counties, where many residents get their water from private wells on their property.
Just like a neighbor down the street, Lori Cervera, 52, was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2014. Shortly after, tests revealed high levels of PFAS in her well. She and her family drank bottled water for two years before the DOD paid to switch her household to public water.
"My kids played in the pool," Cervera said. "When my grandchildren were babies, I made them bottles with it. I’m so worried that it could have harmed my kids."
Certain types of PFAS have been linked to serious and adverse health effects in humans and animals, including birth defects, some cancers and other conditions, according to medical studies and federal agencies like the CDC.
"The stakes are the life and health of everyone who drinks water," said attorney Mark Cuker. Cuker, who also lives near the bases and represents several local families exposed to PFAS. He has sued the U.S. Navy to compel it to pay for blood testing and medical monitoring of affected residents. "Some people are going to get sick because nothing is being done."
Massachusetts
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