“WASHINGTON — An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Bill pending in the Senate would force the public release of a report on safe levels of perfluorinated chemicals, also known as PFAS, in drinking water.
The amendment by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., was cosponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and would compel the Department of Health and Human Services to publish the study. Portman and Brown were the latest to sign on to the amendment with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Sen. Margaret Wood Hassan, D-N.H., Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Sen. Gary C. Peters, D-Mich.
The PFAS family includes C8 and its successor GenX, used to make Teflon at the Washington Works in Wood County. A science panel created in a C8 lawsuit settlement determined there was a possible link between C8 and six diseases in humans, based on the health data from around 70,000 residents of the Mid-Ohio Valley.
Among uses for the compounds are firefighting equipment and foams.
National news outlets have reported the Environmental Protection Agency has blocked the release of the study through the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry of the Department of Health and Human Services because of a public relations problem…
The National Defense Authorization Act is pending before the Senate and could pass as early as today. Thirty-six military facilities across the country have on-base drinking water contamination from PFAS chemicals that exceed the EPA’s safety levels, Brown and Portman said.”
Read the full article by Jess Mancini