Related — Republican Congressman: Pruitt should quit after trying to block PFAS study

“Congressmen Brian Fitzpatrick and Brendan Boyle ramped up their recent criticism of Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt at a Monday morning press conference in Horsham.

In addition to calling on the EPA to regulate toxic compounds that have contaminated the area’s groundwater, Fitzpatrick, R-8, of Middletown, also said he believed Pruitt should resign as administrator of the agency. Fitzpatrick is one of only a handful of Republican representatives nationwide to do so thus far.

‘Yes, I do,’ said Fitzpatrick, when asked if Pruitt should resign. He added that he’d normally wait for a formal investigation into conduct, but that there was ‘way too much smoke at this point.’

‘This (the water contamination) is exhibit A of this,’ Fitzpatrick said. ‘Brendan and I are trying to accomplish a goal here: We need transparency in our government, and if we don’t get that, that’s unacceptable’…

‘We call for the full force of the federal government to respond to this wrong, to remediate the contamination, compensate and make communities whole, study the issue with urgency, and share the latest information with the public,’ said Boyle, D-13, of Philadelphia, whose current district includes parts of Montgomery County.

Both Boyle and Fitzpatrick continued their recent criticism of the EPA for its alleged role in suppressing a draft health study on perfluorinated chemicals performed by a sub-agency of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The draft study, released last week, put forth recommended limits for some perfluorinated chemicals at about one-seventh the amount currently used by the EPA as the safe recommended limit…

The recently released study also undercuts the military, which is using the EPA’s 70 parts per trillion (ppt) recommended safety limit as its action level for filtering contaminated water or reimbursing water supplies for costs associated to contamination. Locally, the Warminster, Horsham and Warrington water supplies all are paying millions of dollars to provide water to customers with no trace of the chemicals. Those costs, in varying amounts in the three water supplies, are being passed onto customers.

More than 200 private wells also have been found to be contaminated. The military provides bottled water for residences served by those wells until they can be connected to a public water supply. But several hundred additional private wells also had the chemicals detected below 70 ppt, and the families that rely on them are not receiving any compensation or alternative water.”

Read the full article by Kyle Bagenstose.