Who Ought to Pay to Clean Up ‘Forever Chemical substances’?

— Not us, representatives of water utilities and landfills converse at a Senate hearing

by
Joyce Frieden, Washington Editor, MedPage Today
March 20, 2024

“Forever chemical substances” are harming people and wildlife and might simply be some distance flung from the soil and water, nevertheless who should always tranquil pay to compose that? Witnesses at a Senate Ambiance and Public Works Committee hearing Wednesday did not agree on the acknowledge.

The chemical substances, referred to as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are extinct in all sorts of household and industrial products — including firefighting foam and dental floss — and had been current in air, soil, and water. They’ve been linked with liver agonize and diversified sorts of cancers.

Water utilities should always tranquil no longer be held accountable for the agonize performed by PFAS, acknowledged Michael Witt, JD, overall counsel for the Passaic Valley (New Jersey) Sewerage Commission (PVSC), who testified on behalf of the Water Coalition Towards PFAS. “We compose no longer compose PFAS; we compose no longer cash in on PFAS — industry did that for a protracted time,” he acknowledged.

“In distinction, utilities passively got PFAS by strategy of ingesting water provides and by influents,” he endured. “That fact, and that fact on my own, exposes every utility in a ability liability under CERCLA [the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, also known as the Superfund law] — and it exposes our price-payers to having to pay for the plot back of funding PFAS cleanups. That is simply hideous and Congress should always act to fix it.”

He illustrious that his grasp utility firm has been involved for a protracted time in a lawsuit over the dumping of TCDD — a contaminant of the herbicide Agent Orange — into the Passaic River by producer Diamond Alkali. “The agonize that the firm did will elope into the billions of dollars to remediate. It’s tough to have faith a extra culpable occasion” than Diamond Alkali, and yet its “successor pursuits had been ready to sprint — by a protracted time of litigation — hundreds of events including PVSC and 40 diversified public entities into this war,” he acknowledged. Witt estimated that his utility firm had spent $4.6 million in faithful fees linked to the case over the closing 8 years.

Wastewater therapy facilities also mustn’t be held accountable, acknowledged Robert Fox, JD, a partner at the law firm Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox, who testified on behalf of the Nationwide Extinguish and Recycling Association and the Stable Extinguish Association of North The usa. The Environmental Protection Company (EPA) “has proposed listing [two PFAS-related compounds] as dangerous substances under CERCLA,” he illustrious. On the opposite hand, “PFAS compounds are ubiquitous in user products, including nonstick cookware … nail polish, and carpets. As soon as discarded, these provides are in the end disposed of in municipal stable waste landfills.”

“In consequence, landfills are and had been passive receivers of these waste streams containing PFAS,” he endured. “They by no methodology manufactured or exhaust PFAS of their operations; they receive them due to the presence in waste created by almost every body in this country. There might be not always any purposeful means for landfills to name or segregate household waste containing PFAS from overall waste,” so designating them as dangerous substances requiring remediation without giving waste processors an exception “would compel landfills to restrict inbound waste with elevated levels of [PFAS] compounds … In consequence, EPA’s goal of promptly remediating PFAS contamination at diversified websites shall be delayed and pissed off … This could simply entirely disrupt the properly-established municipal waste infrastructure in this country.”

But Scott Faber, JD, senior vice president of govt affairs of the Environmental Working Community in Washington, D.C., disagreed. “I mediate or no longer it’s some distance a mistake to refer to people as passive receivers,” he acknowledged. “Landfills, waste managers, and water utilities elect to receive these wastes. They’ll refuse these wastes; they might be able to require their customers to pretreat these wastes; they might be able to require them to provide records of this waste. That is nothing unusual for waste managers and water utilities — there are hundreds of these dangerous substances that they tackle on daily foundation.”

“Extra than 600 dangerous substances are tranquil being produced, and further than 300 are being produced in excessive quantity, including sulfuric acid,” he added. “A entire bunch are already current in landfills, and 66 are current in ingesting systems.”

Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) asked witnesses what the U.S. might learn from diversified countries about how to tackle this plot back.

James Kenney, secretary of the New Mexico Ambiance Department, illustrious that “utility operator coaching within the US is no longer on the front of our academic systems. Discovering out how to cope with ingesting water, especially from the STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math education] standpoint, is one thing lets put money into from the federal stage.”

Faber had one other advice. “Other countries are racing to eradicate unnecessary makes exhaust of of PFAS,” he acknowledged. “We are falling tiresome the relaxation of the world when it comes to striking off these makes exhaust of of PFAS in carpets, clothing, and the things we carry into our homes … We should always tranquil put burden on industry to converse why these items are fully valuable.”

Carper also wanted to know what the witnesses might agree on.

Faber acknowledged he thinks “all of us agree that we should always tranquil assemble a ingesting water identical previous [for PFAS] … And that we mustn’t mark this plot back better, and enable producers to continue to discharge this chemical without a limits in any recognize.”

At the 2nd, “seemingly extra than 30,000 companies are discharging PFAS into our air and water straight away … I suspect here’s an place the place there might be different for right progress,” he added.

Fox pointed out that “the tenet under Superfund is that the polluter pays, and we don’t desire those paying to be price-payers and taxpayers.”