State Senator Tom Sherman says the White House is fighting an effort to protect residents from environmental triggered illnesses and that it was really appropriate that lawmakers gather at Pease because “it was the waste at Pease containing PFAS from firefighting form that went over to Coakley and now most of the Seacoast has some level of contamination.
In a press conference on January 24 at Pease, State Senators Tom Sherman, Martha Fuller-Clark and State Representatives Dennis Malloy and David Meuse agreed that the state’s Democratic congressional delegation have worked hard to “keep all of our communities safe and healthy,” according to Senator Fuller-Clark.
Senator Fuller-Clark said that the president’s recent to veto the PFAS Action Act and his decision to end federal protection of many of the nation’s streams and wetlands. If these policy changes move forward these “essential protections could be repealed.” She added that the state and Seacoast are facing a “PFAS crisis “that has reached alarming levels,” and added she was particularly concerned with regard to what we have seen at Pease right here in my community.”
Senator Sherman added that 3M, the leading manufacturer of PFAS chemistry in United States joined a lawsuit that has delayed implementation of a bill he drafted to set more protection Maximum Contaminant Levels for PFAS chemicals in water. But his new bill, of which I am a co-sponsor, SB 287 seeks to make the new standards state law. “I’m confident the governor will sign it because it is his own department that actually came up with these new limits,” Senator Sherman said about the standards set by the state DES.
I, along with many other Seacoast legislators signed onto this bill and attended the press conference. For a complete Seacoast On-Line article on the press conference click on link below.
State Senator Tom Sherman, State Representative Dennis Malloy, State Senator Martha Fuller-Clark and State Representative Dave Meuse at Pease calling for protection from PFAS contamination January 24, 2019