(The following information was provided by the office of
state Rep. Todd Stephens.)
Rep. Todd Stephens (R-Montgomery) announced on Wednesday that the federal government, through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has recommended that the acceptable levels of PFAS in drinking water should be reduced to barely detectable levels. This is the standard Stephens first demanded in 2016 during his long fight to remove PFAS from local drinking water.
Notably, Horsham Township has been meeting this safer standard for years and the Military Installation Remediation and Infrastructure Authority (MIRIA), which Stephens chairs, has been funding projects to this standard since its inception.
"Residents connected to public water in Horsham can rest assured their water has been meeting this safer standard for years,” Stephens said. "I’m glad the EPA has finally changed the standard to better protect public health across the country.”
PFAS compounds, also called "forever chemicals” as they build up in blood and do not break down in the environment, have been linked to bladder cancer and other maladies by the National Institutes of Health.
The EPA today issued a health advisory that set health risk thresholds for PFAS chemicals PFOA and PFOS to near non-detectable levels, replacing 2016 guidelines that had set them at 70 parts per trillion.
In 2006, the federal government closed several military bases around the country, including the Willow Grove Naval Air Station in Montgomery County.
In transferring the land, the federal government discovered significant environmental issues, including PFAS contamination of the drinking water in some communities in Montgomery and Bucks counties caused by firefighting foam at the military installation. Faced with insufficient federal action, local governments had no choice but to impose surcharges on ratepayers to fund cleanup efforts.
Stephens introduced Act 101 of 2019 to redirect a portion of state tax revenue generated from the reuse of the former Willow Grove Naval Air Station and land surrounding it to the Military Installation Remediation and Infrastructure Authority (MIRIA) that reimbursed local water ratepayers for the cost of cleaning PFAS from the water and to remediate water contamination caused by the military installation.
