Read the full article by Frank Kummer (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
“The Delaware County District Attorney’s Office has filed a civil complaint against dozens of chemical manufacturers for what it says is the companies’ role in contaminating local fire facilities with PFAS, known as ‘forever chemicals,’ with some levels thousands of times in excess of federal guidelines.
The Primos-Secane-Westbrook Park Fire Company in Upper Darby, the Haverford Township Firefighting Training Center, and Delaware County Emergency Services Training Center all either had groundwater, wastewater, soil, or sediment polluted by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), according to the suit.
The lawsuit, filed in Common Pleas Court, and announced by District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, seeks unspecified damages for remediation, removal, and disposal of water or soil. Italso seeks damages related to diminished property value. It alleges the sites were contaminated by two compounds within the PFAS family of chemicals:PFOA and PFOS.
‘The filing of this lawsuit is the first step in holding these chemical companies accountable for the damage they have caused to our County,’ Stollsteimer said in the announcement. ‘Unquestionably, the contamination that we are dealing with could have been prevented if these companies had been honest with consumers.’
The suit is part of a growing backlash against the near ubiquity of PFAS compounds that for decades have been used in products including cookware, fabric treatments, carpeting, and firefighting foam. There are at least 9,000 known PFAS compounds, with 600 still in use in the United States…”