Shapiro: ‘Legal action’ coming for companies tied to PFAS drinking water contamination
23 Oct 2019 | The Intelligencer
Attorney General Josh Shapiro says his office will file legal action in the coming months against companies that made firefighting foams. Chemicals found in the foams have contaminated Bucks and Montgomery County communities.
Michigan hires private lawyers also pushing opioid cases for PFAS lawsuit
23 Oct 2019 | Legal Newsline
Fields PLLC of Washington, D.C. will head Michigan’s PFAS case. Previously, Richard Fields found major success in asbestos and breast implant litigation by taking on the insurance companies that issued policies to the corporate defendants.
Dr. Phil Brown talks PFAS contamination and ongoing research
23 Oct 2019 | Northeastern University
“It’s a big deal,” Brown says. “You put all this together and it’s the biggest chemical contamination issue in many, many years.” The important part, he says, is to regulate these chemicals as a class, rather than individually. Otherwise, each of the roughly 4,700 chemicals would need to be investigated separately, even if they had only minor molecular differences. And since the health effects are long-term problems like cancer, these studies could take decades.
GenX protest at plant near Fayetteville on Oct. 26
22 Oct 2019 | Fayetteville Observer
People angry about the GenX chemical contamination of water supplies south of Fayetteville plan to hold a protest at the Chemours Co. chemical plant.This will be held in conjunction with other protests at Chemours operations in Italy and Mexico.
EPA still plans to introduce PFAS limits for drinking water by year-end
22 Oct 2019 | mlive
Federal officials said during a visit to Michigan that they are on track to meet a year-end deadline to propose regulatory standards for PFAS in drinking water.
[EWG News] 10 toxic ‘forever chemicals’ found in Louisville, KY, tap water
22 Oct 2019 | EWG
The highest level of any single PFAS detected in the EWG sample collected in Louisville was 22 ppt of a compound known as GenX. It is a replacement chemical for PFOA, which was used to make Teflon before U.S. manufacturers phased it out of production under pressure from the EPA. The EPA’s research has found that GenX is nearly as toxic as the PFOA it replaced, and DuPont, its original manufacturer, has provided test results to the EPA showing that GenX caused cancer in lab animals.
Clean drinking water options for Hoosick Falls considered
21 Oct 2019 | Bennington Banner
Connecting to the existing Troy system was seen as the most expensive, at $48.5 million; connecting to a new untreated surface water source from the Tomhannock, at $34.4 million; continued filtering of existing village wells plus a remediation system for contaminants at McCaffrey Street, $10.1 million; development of a new village well water sources, at $6.9 million, and continued use of filtering alone at the existing village wells at $6.3 million. Comments on the report will be accepted until Nov. 18.
Erin Brockovich sounds alarm over PFAS after more Queensland sites revealed
20 Oct 2019 | ABC News
More than 60 sites in Queensland are believed to be contaminated by PFAS. A university campus and a residential development are being built on two of the contaminated sites. Erin Brockovich says Australia is behind in dealing with the issue.
Lawsuit wants tough PFAS drinking water standards in NH scrapped
18 Oct 2019 | Associated Press
Lawyers for 3M, a farmer and several others urged a judge to scrap drinking water standards in the state that go far beyond federal limits for toxic chemicals.
Now retired, top U.S. environmental scientist feels free to speak her mind
17 Oct 2019 | Science Magazine
PFAS "make dioxin look easy. There are 5000 and the number keeps growing. There are multiple nuclear receptors which can be impacted by PFAS. There are also many other pathways that are affected. Of the thousands of PFAS, really, there’s only a fair amount of data on two of them."
EPA touts success in reducing children’s chemical exposures, fails to account for emerging contaminants
16 Oct 2019 | Bloomberg Environment
According to Barbara Morrissey, chairwoman of EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, the reductions are “worth celebrating but only part of the picture.” To get a fuller understanding of exposure trends, the EPA’s indicators must be updated with exposure measurements for new chemicals that replaced older ones that were phased out
Here’s what Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s new PFAS water rules mean for Michigan
16 Oct 2019 | Bridge Michigan
Michigan has taken a major step toward regulating dangerous PFAS chemicals in drinking water supplies. The final rule could be adopted by April 2020, but it must first clear an administrative review that includes consideration by the Environmental Rules Review Committee, a controversial panel that GOP lawmakers created last year to check the governor’s power.
‘Dark Waters’ brings awareness to PFAS water contamination litigation
15 Oct 2019 | Legal Examiner
A new movie scheduled to be released in November 2019, follows the story of how the American company DuPont knowingly poisoned 70,000 residents for decades. Currently, lawsuit against DuPont, 3M, and other companies are being filled for their alleged role in other water contamination crisis.
Pumping PFAS-contaminated water from airport expansion into ocean is ‘insanity’, chemical expert says
15 Oct 2019 | ABC News
The Sunshine Coast airport was inundated during heavy rainfall leaving more than 125 million litres of PFAS-contaminated water at the site. The Sunshine Coast Council's proposed building a pipeline to funnel the contaminated water from the airport construction site and into the nearby ocean at Marcoola. This plan has residents and chemical experts worried.
[EWG News] For PFAS, hazardous designation is not a ban
15 Oct 2019 | EWG
Designating PFAS as “hazardous substances” is critical to cleaning up legacy contamination [and is different than a ban]. There are currently 761 substances on the CERCLA hazardous substances list. Almost 700 of them have been on the list since the law was passed in 1980. An EWG analysis found that at least 599, or 79 percent of these chemicals are likely still in active use in commerce today. What’s more, 339 of the CERCLA hazardous substances chemicals, or 44 percent, are not only in production, but likely produced at high volumes.