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Why This Matters: Think twice before you drink water from a tap in much of the country. Almost one-third of Americans may be drinking water with PFAS in it. The EPA does not regulate this “forever” chemical that never breaks down once released into the environment, and that builds up in our blood and organs. And scientists have warned that even low doses of PFAS chemicals in drinking water have been linked to many serious health problems such as an increased risk of cancer, reproductive and immune system harm, liver and thyroid disease. Meanwhile, Congress is bickering and has thus far been unable to pass legislation to force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit PFAS contamination. Meanwhile, companies could also do the right thing and filter out the PFAS but they won’t because they are not required to do so. Shame on everyone involved in the poisoning of our drinking water or failing to do anything about it.
Take Massachusetts’ Merrimack River, For Example
This was the headline in the Boston Globe this week: “Toxic chemicals can be dumped into Merrimack River, federal and state officials say.” The story is even more shocking.
Massachusetts permits New Hampshire to truck in dirty water that comes from a large landfill there to be treated in Lowell, Massachusetts, and then — because it is perfectly legal to do so (the water is “treated” after all) the plant dumps 100,000 gallons of it a day into the Merrimack River.
The landfill tests the water and those show that the amount of PFAS in it was more than 100 times higher than federal and state “guidelines” and more than 400 times higher than stricter standards being considered in Massachusetts.
And then there is this too — according to the Globe, “[o]fficials at Waste Management, the Texas-based company that owns Turnkey Landfill, said it has the capability to filter out the chemicals but isn’t required to do so.”
The Merrimack is one of the New England region’s most polluted rivers Photo: Boston Globe
by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer While all eyes were on Texas last month, another part of the U.S. has been dealing with its own water crisis. Parts of Jackson, Mississippi have been without water for almost 3 weeks after cold weather swept through the region. Thousands of people, predominantly people of color, have been impacted by the shortage […]
While more than one million Texans are still living without running water, Democratic lawmakers and advocates across the nation are urging President Biden to back a water infrastructure bill that would commit $35 billion to update and climate-proof the nation’s water infrastructure.
Why This Matters: The Guardian reports that a majority of water and waste systems in the U.S. are unprepared to deal with the increasing impacts of climate change.
Florida and Georgia faced off again in the Supreme Court on Monday, asking the Justices to settle their long-running dispute over water. The problem is that there is not enough to go around in three rivers the emanate in Georgia but flow through Florida to the Gulf of Mexico.
Why This Matters: The states failed to reach a water compact more than a decade ago — now they have nowhere else to go but the Supreme Court, which has “original jurisdiction” over a dispute between two states.
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