Last week, Judge Pappert dismissed the PFAS exposure medical monitoring suit we filed against the US Navy because, even though these chemicals are “hazardous” under any definition, neither the EPA nor the PaDEP had “designated” PFOA or PFOS as “hazardous substances” under Pennsylvania’s Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act. The judge ruled that meeting the “definition” wasn’t […]
News
Congress fails to act; Community fights on Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which, to our bitter disappointment, leaves PFAS “unregulated.” It includes some measures to reduce future PFAS use, but this is nowhere near enough to address the problem. This excellent NBC news story describes how Hope Grosse and Joanne Stanton, founders of […]
Getting justice for PFAS victims is a steep uphill battle. The chemicals were entirely unregulated as recently as five years ago; and still unregulated in most states. Polluters have an array of defenses, ranging from sovereign immunity for the U.S. Government, to the government contractor defense for the foam manufacturers. But when I saw the […]
On Friday November 22, I joined my colleagues Hope Grosse and Joanne Stanton of Buxmont Coalition for Safer Water to brief Congressional staffers in Washington DC. We met with staff from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the House PFAS Task a Force and the House Government oversight committee We briefed them on three […]
The ATSDR announced the centers of the multi-site health study that will look at the relatio0nship between PFAS exposure. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/news/displaynews.asp?PRid=2679 The sites are: Montgomery and Bucks Counties, PA Gloucester County, NJ Hoosick Falls, NY, and Newburgh, NY El Paso County, CO Parchment/Cooper Township, MI, and North Kent County, MI Hyannis, MA, and Ayer, MA communities […]
In a much ballyhooed trip to Horsham, Gov. Wolf proudly announced that $3.8 million of the Commonwealth budget will go to pay for clean water in Horsham, Warminster, Warrington and Warwick Townships. Certainly these townships, which have been Ground Zero for PFAS pollution coming from the Willow Grove and Warminster Naval Airbases, need and deserve […]
The July 28 article in the Bucks Intelligencer (https://www.theintell.com/news/20190728/docs-military-chemical-hazards-going-unaddressed) warned about the high levels of PFAS being discharged into creeks and streams emanating from the Willow Grove Base: Environmental testing conducted around the base between 2015 and 2019 has consistently shown high PFAS levels in creeks and streams near Willow Grove. Recent testing results taken […]
The newly installed Secretary of Defense has pledged a “holistic and aggressive” approach to cleaning up PFAS at military bases. That’s long overdue, but the DOD’s lengthy track record of foot-dragging, obfuscation and procrastination makes one skeptical See my comments at the link below https://whyy.org/articles/bucks-and-montco-activists-skeptical-about-pentagon-pfas-task-force/
Just back from the exhilarating, overwhelming and inspiring Second National PFAS Conference at Northeastern University in Boston SEE: https://pfasproject.com/2019/02/05/2019-pfas-conference/ Some brief observations: The Scientific community has responded to the threat with a blizzard of studies investigating the harm from PFAS and how to prevent it. We heard reports on studies of everything from toxicological modeling […]
On May 21 Gov. Wolf appeared at the Horsham Water and Sewer Authority—ground zero for PFAS contaminants caused by the Willow Grove Naval Air Station— to announce with great fanfare his Restore Pennsylvania plan to cleanup PFAS contamination statewide. The plan would enact a “severance tax” on fracking to fund $4.5 billion for cleanup costs […]
