Read the full article by Kimberly Hass (Union Leader)
“PORTSMOUTH — Officials turned out on Friday morning to raise awareness about the work that is being done to protect Granite Staters from per- and polyfluoroalkyl pollution and to slam what they called ‘Toxic Trump’s inaction’ on water contamination issues…
Fuller Clark and State Sen. Tom Sherman, D-Rye, introduced two pieces of legislation in the state Senate last week to allocate funds from the PFAS polluter lawsuit to aid communities and set strict state standards for contamination.
Sherman said he expects New Hampshire will see lower state PFAS standards soon through his amended Senate Bill 287, but he said federal changes are still needed before a difference can truly be made on the Seacoast.
Sherman said a majority of the communities in the Portsmouth area have been affected by PFAS contamination on the former Air Force Base at Pease or by contamination that seeped into water sources from Coakley Landfill, a Superfund site in North Hampton that accepted waste from the Air Force Base when it was in operation…
On Jan. 7, the White House sent out a statement that the administration ‘strongly opposes’ passage of the federal PFAS Action Act of 2019, saying the legislation would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue certain regulations related to the contaminants; the statement said this process would create ‘considerable litigation risk, set problematic and unreasonable rulemaking timelines and precedents, and impose substantial, unwarranted costs on federal, state, and local agencies and other key stakeholders in both the public and private sectors’…
On Friday, U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich., was stumping for presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren in New Hampshire. He held community conversations about PFAS and other chemical contamination in Portsmouth and Merrimack, which is considered ground zero for the issue…
‘The New Hampshire congressional delegation is leading on this issue and I’ve been working with them to get the EPA to declare a federal maximum contaminant level and nationwide safe drinking water standards for PFAS,’ Warren said…
People who worked, attended school or were enrolled in daycare at facilities on Pease International Tradeport between 2004 and May of 2014, as well as people who lived in Newington from 2004 until the present and used a private well with documented PFAS contamination, are encouraged to take part in a public health study being conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry…”