Kyle Bagenstose reports for the Bucks County Courier-Times
During a Senate Environment and Public Works committee Thursday, U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, of Delaware, and an EPA official went back and forth on the speed of the agency’s response to PFAS chemicals.
Department of Defense and Environmental Protection Agency officials faced scrutiny over their response to toxic chemicals during a Senate hearing Thursday morning, but repeated past assurances that their agencies were doing all they could to address growing contamination.
The subject of the two-hour Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing was per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a family of durable chemicals that have been used for decades in non-stick cookware, water-resistant clothing, firefighting foams used by the military, and other applications. Bucks and Montgomery counties are the site of one of the worst PFAS contaminations in the country, with at least 70,000 people previously exposed to dangerous amounts of the chemicals.
Citizens, towns and environmental groups nationwide have been critical of the military and EPA over the response to PFAS, saying they’ve been too slow to respond to a growing national health crisis. Committee minority leader Sen. Tom Carper, D-Delaware, voiced such concerns Thursday, saying the EPA lacked a sense of urgency.
“I know it when I see it,” Carper said. “That’s not the case, at least so far.”
David Ross, assistant administrator in the EPA’s Office of Water, referred to the agency’s PFAS Action Plan, reiterating previous congressional testimony that the EPA has committed to considering a nationwide drinking water standard, listing some PFAS as hazardous substances under the Superfund law, creating groundwater recommendations, and other measures.
When Carper tried to pin Ross down on a precise date for setting a drinking water standard, Ross said the process didn’t allow for such a prediction.
“We are going to move as expeditiously as we can,” Ross said.
Asked by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, about how the EPA will support water suppliers and treatment operators hit by PFAS contamination costs, Ross referred to the agency’s consideration of a Superfund listing.
“If we list (PFAS) as hazardous substances … that helps in the cost recovery aspect,” Ross said.
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