Sens.
Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan brought concerns from Granite Staters on Wednesday in the first-ever U.S. Senate hearing on PFAS contamination.
Representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense fielded questions from Shaheen, Hassan and other U.S. senators about what is being done to study the health effects of the chemicals.
“Are there technology improvements that are being worked on or lie ahead to improve the treatment of drinking water and reduce cost to private well owners?” Hassan asked.
“Absolutely, without question, and EPA has an active research program in collaboration with other federal partners to identify technologies for treating these compounds, not only in drinking water, but actually in other sources like contaminated sites,” replied Peter Grevatt, directors of the EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.
“While we have studies that indicate potential adverse health effects due to a few PFAS, our findings are limited, and we do not have data for thousands of PFAS that have not been well-studied,” said Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health.
Hassan invited Portsmouth resident Andrea Amico, who started the push for group testing for Pease International Tradeport.
Amico testified before the committee about how contaminated water has affected her family.
“I live every day with worry that my children, who were exposed to high levels of PFAS in their early life and at critical stages of their development, will now suffer adverse health effects over their lifetime,” Amico said.
“However, I have channeled those feelings of anxiety and worry into my advocacy work by forming a community action group called Testing for Pease, with two other mothers, Alayna Davis and Michelle Dalton.” The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services is holding a meeting in Merrimack on Oct. 10 to provide an update on the PFAS investigation.