Throughout the early months of 2019, there have been a lot of stories reported about PFAS water contamination—from a Washington Post article calling attention to the problem in a Michigan town to the EPA releasing an action plan to address the chemicals to states like Pennsylvania making the decision to begin testing water supplies for PFAS.
This is a problem that many people were previously unaware of that is now coming up on a lot of radars. In the latest news, NJ.com is reporting that New Jersey congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. has introduced a new bill (known as the PFAS Drinking Water Act) that would create a federal grant program to help drinking water systems pay for updates so they would have the ability to remove PFAS (which is short for “polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances”).
The bill would help states like New Jersey, which the article notes will need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in order to upgrade its water systems to effectively address PFAS contamination. And New Jersey isn’t the only state where this is a problem—PFAS contamination has popped up in water supplies from coast to coast, throughout the United States.
Congressman Pallone states: “This bill will ensure communities across the country have the resources they need to eliminate the toxic chemicals from their water. Americans deserve to know their drinking water is safe.”
