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Eastern Shore of Virginia Ground Water Committee

March 19, 2019 10:00 a.m.

Enterprise Building, Accomac

MEETING AGENDA

1. Call to Order 2. Public Participation 3. Minutes of the February 19, 2019 Meeting ........................................................................ 3

4. Financial Status Report ....................................................................................................... 7

5. Nomination for 2018 Ground Water Award ....................................................................... 9

6. March 2019 Staff Update .................................................................................................. 10

VDH Septic & Well Services – Hardship Guidelines ........................................... 10

HHWC Update ...................................................................................................... 10 FY 2019 ATTENDANCE RECORD ................................................................... 15

7. March 2019 Ground Water Consultant Report ................................................................. 12

1. Senate Bill 1599 ............................................................................................. 12

2. Environment Virginia 2019 Conference Presentation ................................... 12

a. Update the Eastern Shore Groundwater Protection Plan ................................ 12

8. Other Matters

9. Schedule Next Meeting & Adjourn

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Minutes of the February 19, 2019 Meeting Eastern Shore of Virginia Ground Water Committee

The meeting of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Ground Water Committee was held at 10:00 AM on Tuesday, February 19, 2019 in the A-NPDC Conference Room of the Enterprise Building in Accomac, Virginia. Members Present: Daniel Hershey Elaine Meil Eugene R. Hampton Jim Belote John Coker, Chairman John Salm Paul Muhly, Vice Chairman Taylor Dukes

Members Absent: Charles Kolakowski Michael Mason (Rich Morrison attended as alternate)

Others Present: Bill Savage, ESSWCD Britt McMillan, ARCADIS Carmie Savage, ESSWCD Charles Spangler, Citizen Curtis Consolvo, GeoResoures, Inc. Curt Smith, A-NPDC Dirk Lynch, MSA Janet Sturgis, Northampton Planning Comm. Jeff Poulterer, ES Locavores Joe Valentine, Clean Water Council Jon Richardson, ESHD Joseph Betit, Accomack Citizen Ken Dufty, Exmore Resident Linda Cicoira, ES Post Roberta Kellam, Citizen Sandra Beerends, Northampton Resident Shannon Alexander, A-NPDC Sheila Traina, Cheriton Resident Sue Mastyl, Clean Water Council Trent Lewis, Tyson Foods

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1. Call to Order Chairman Coker called the meeting to order at 10:10 AM.

2. Public Participation Mrs. Roberta Kellam nominated Mr. Robert Meyers for the Ground Water Award based on his many years of service on the Ground Water Committee and commitment to groundwater preservation. She also nominated Senator Lynwood Lewis for his efforts to help the Eastern Shore best manage their Ground Water Resources, particularly for his efforts with SB1599. Mr. Britt McMillan took this opportunity to put NOAA forward for the Ground Water Award for their voluntary sourcing of the surficial aquifer for cooling tower waters. Mr. Charles Spangler expressed two questions, which were briefly explained by the consultant. 1 – Recharge to prevent salt water intrusion, particularly with regards to poultry houses. 2 – Does the Committee recommend better alternatives to municipal waste water treatment facilities to surface water discharge?

3. Review of the January 15, 2019 Minutes The draft minutes of the January 15, 2019 meeting were presented. The attendee list was amended to remove Roberta Kellam who was not present.

Vice Chairman Muhly moved to approve the Minutes of the January 15, 2019 meeting, as amended. The motion, seconded by Committee Member Hampton, carried unanimously.

4. FY 2019 Financial Status Report The FY 2019 Financial Status Report was not presented.

Committee Member Salm moved to approve the FY2019 financial status report. The motion, seconded by Vice Chairman Muhly, carried unanimously.

5. Nomination for 2018 Ground Water Award Staff is to send Committee Members the award guidelines and a brief fact sheet about all five of the nominees listed below, so that Members are prepared with a final choice before the March meeting.

• Senator Lewis • Robert Meyers • NOAA • Mark Reiter • Town of Exmore

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6. Staff Update The following staff updates were presented:

Committee Attendance Record The FY2019 Committee Attendance Record was presented. Environmental Reviews and Permits Staff reported there were no new groundwater permits or public notices to review and that there is a new hire with VDEQ in the Office of Water Supply, who intends to attend the March meeting. Other Items VDH Septic & Well Services – Hardship Guidelines to be developed by July 1, 2019 Staff reported that they submitted an additional, unofficial comment to VDH concerning exemptions for grant funded projects. The second draft of the guidance is not yet available, but staff will supply it to Members once it becomes available from VDH. HHWC Update Staff reported that both the Northampton and Accomack County Boards unanimously entered into the Joint Resolution Agreement and staff is moving forward with implementing the VDH Wellhead Protection grant. VDEQ Septic BMP Project Staff reported project goals in the Gulf, Barlow, Mattawoman, Jacobus, and Hungars Creek watershed areas, including a fall outreach/education event. Discussion about community systems ensued. 7. Ground Water Consultant Report The consultant reported about progress of relevant legislation in the Virginia General Assembly, particularly with regards to SB1599 which has now made it unanimously through both the Senate and the House. Discussion about the need to have the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for developing these new regulations meet on the Shore and be comprised of primarily Eastern Shore representatives. This Committee should have clearly identified needs/wants from these changes to help guide the process. He confirmed the date/time and final abstract for the presentation he will give March 27th from 1:15pm-2:15pm at the Environment Virginia Symposium in Lexington. The consultant provided a review of the 2013 Eastern Shore Groundwater Protection and Preservation Plan. Discussion about necessary updates for the 5-year review and additional elements, such as a strategy/action table were discussed. Staff is to work on the monitorable

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strategic action element, which can be used as a guiding document for future Committee focus and efforts. 8. Other Matters: Chairman Coker requested that each member thoroughly review section 5 of the 2013 Preservation Plan and bring recommendations to the March meeting. Printed copies were supplied and staff will provide a link to the digital document via email. 9. Schedule Next Meeting & Adjournment

The next Committee meeting was scheduled for March 19th, 2019 at 10:00 AM in the A-NPDC Conference Room of the Enterprise Building in Accomac.

Chairman Coker adjourned the meeting at 11:45 AM.

____________________________________ John Coker, Chairman Copy test:

____________________________________ Elaine K. N. Meil, Secretary

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MEMORANDUM TO: Eastern Shore of Virginia Ground Water Committee FROM: Shannon Alexander Coastal Resources Program Manager Accomack-Northampton Planning District Commission

DATE: March 19, 2019

SUBJECT:

Financial Status Report

Financial Status Report

The FY 2019 Financial Status Report is attached.

Bills Payable: none

TOTAL BILLS PAYABLE $0.00

Revenues Received: Accomack County $5,812.75

TOTLE REVENUES RECEIVED $5,812.75

Staff requests the Committee review and consider approving the FY2019 Financial Status Report.

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MEMORANDUM TO: Eastern Shore of Virginia Ground Water Committee FROM: Shannon Alexander Coastal Resources Program Manager Accomack-Northampton Planning District Commission

DATE: March 19, 2019

SUBJECT:

Nomination for 2018 Ground Water Award

Previous recipients are listed below. Public nominations are accepted. The 2-page form and additional information can be found at http://www.a-npdc.org/accomack-northampton-planning-district-commission/ground-water-management/projects-programs/ground-water-award-program/.

2005 – Jane Corson-Lassiter, ES Environmental Education Council 2006 – Richard Davis, Ivy Farm Nursery 2007 – William Neal, Hermitage Farms Nursery 2008 – Chuck Tankard, Tankard Farms 2009 – Robin Rinaca, Eastern Shore Nursery of Virginia 2010 - Walmart Supercenter of Onley 2011 – Cherrystone Campground and Aqua-Farms 2012 - Town of Cape Charles Wastewater Treatment Plant 2013 – ES Rural Health Onley Community Health Center 2014 – Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore 2015 – Home-Fitchett Farms 2016 – Commonwealth Chesapeake Company 2017 – John Lauer, Accomack County Regulatory Compliance Specialist 2018 – Nominees:

1. Town of Exmore 2. Mark Reiter, VT 3. Robert Meyers 4. Senator Lewis 5. NOAA

Staff requests the Committee’s nominations for the 2018 Ground Water Award.

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MEMORANDUM

TO: Eastern Shore of Virginia Ground Water Committee FROM: Shannon Alexander Coastal Resources Program Manager Accomack-Northampton Planning District Commission DATE: March 19, 2019 SUBJECT:

March 2019 Staff Update Committee Attendance Record The FY2018 Committee Attendance Records are attached. Environmental Reviews and Permits VA Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program – None. VA Pollution Abatement Program – None. Notice – Environmental Project – None. Consent Orders – None. Federal Consistency Reviews – None. Other Items VDH Septic & Well Services – Hardship Guidelines to be developed by July 1, 2019 VDH reported that the second draft will be posted on www.townhall.virginia.gov and will include a formal public comment period, but as of February 14, not yet available for comment. Most likely there will then be a third and final draft in the March-April timeframe to address comments on the second draft. Written comments can be submitted electronically or be sent by post to 109 Governor Street, 5th Floor, Richmond, Virginia 23219, attention Lance Gregory. Please visit https://www.vaco.org/opportunity-to-comment-on-hardship-guidelines-for-vdh-design-for-septic-and-well-services/ HHWC Update RFQs for construction, electric, and the building should be issued by the end of the month. Staff is working with Accomack County DPW to organize needed trainings. VDEQ Septic BMP Project The EPA approved Water Quality Implementation Plan (IP) for the Gulf, Barlow, Mattawoman, Jacobus, and Hungars Creek guides this project. Mailing materials are being developed.

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Research & Publications Supreme Court will consider letting groundwater pollution escape regulation under Clean Water Act; USA Today by Ledyard King and Richard Wolf https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/19/supreme-court-rule-regulation-polluted-groundwater-epa-clean-water-act/2915360002/?fbclid=IwAR2N3O46v3g1os1bA0b1QlCm7OATbxGp-HoUjfFO8gELKVVZqGSIsHj-Dnw (see attached)

Pentagon Pushes for Weaker Standards on Chemicals Contaminating Drinking Water; NY Times by Eric Lipton and Julie Turkewitz https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/us/politics/chemical-standards-water-epa-pentagon.html (see attached)

Statement: PFAS hearing elevates need for policy reform; Environment America by Bart Johnsen-Harris and Josh Chetwynd https://environmentamerica.org/news/ame/statement-pfas-hearing-elevates-need-policy-reform (see attached)

Upcoming Events/Meetings

3/21/19 2pm Eastern Virginia Groundwater Trading Workgroup at Troutman Sanders Building, 15th Floor, 1001 Haxall Point in Richmond. The 2018 Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 1036, which convene the workgroup for the purposes of assisting the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in carrying out the 2017 recommendation of the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Advisory Committee that an aquifer storage and recovery banking system be developed. The workgroup is also charged with studying and identifying the components of a groundwater-trading program.

3/25/2019 9:30am VDEQ TAC on amendments to the VPA general permit for poultry waste management (9 VAC 25-630 in the Virginia Administrative Code). At the Virginia Farm Bureau, Auditorium, 12580 West Creek Parkway in Richmond. The Notice of Intended Regulatory Action appeared in the Virginia Register of Regulations on October 1, 2018. More information on the proposal is available online at http://townhall.virginia.gov/L/ViewAction.cfm?actionid=5118.

3/26-28/2019 30th Environment Virginia Symposium; Lexington https://conferences.vmi.edu/eva/

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MEMORANDUM

TO: Eastern Shore of Virginia Ground Water Committee FROM: Britt McMillan Principal Hydrogeologist Arcadis DATE: March 19, 2019 SUBJECT:

March 2019 Ground Water Consultant Report Technical/Regulatory/Educational Items

1. Senate Bill 1599 Groundwater Withdrawal; Eastern Shore Groundwater Management Area, Incentives for Use: Delegate Lewis introduced legislation directing the State Water Control Board to adopt regulations providing incentives to withdrawal water from the surficial (Columbia) aquifer. The incentives include:

a. extending permit terms as long as 20 years, b. an accelerated permit process, c. discounted permit fees, d. other subsidies, or e. other incentives.

Including “other incentives” gives the SWCB and VDEQ wide latitude in developing regulations to encourage use of the surficial aquifer. Status: The bill was passed by the House and Senate and was submitted to the Governor on February 27 for approval. Governor’s action deadline is March 26th.

2. Environment Virginia 2019 Conference Presentation: Developing Sustainable Groundwater Use on the Eastern Shore of Virginia: The presentation is scheduled for March 27th from 1:15-2:15 under the session titled: Groundwater Management in Eastern Virginia. The abstract for the presentation was provided in the February 2019 Ground Water Consultant Report. A draft of the presentation will be provided to the Groundwater Committee.

Other Items: 1. Additional FY2019 Groundwater Committee activities. Activities in addition to routine

Committee matters will be discussed. Two additional activities to complete in FY2019 are:

a. Update the Eastern Shore Groundwater Protection Plan. It has been five years since the plan was prepared. The plan included a 5-year review and update as necessary. There have been substantial research and regulatory activities over the past 5-years that warrant updating the plan. In addition to updating research and regulatory

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activities, updating the sustainability metrics is recommended. The need for more discrete sustainability metrics was discussed in prior meetings, and these metrics should be incorporated in the plan.

b. Present summary of past draft ordinance evaluations completed by the Groundwater Committee in 2002 and discuss portions that are most relevant in 2019.

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Eastern Shore of Virginia Ground Water Committee FY 2019 Consultant Progress Summary

Task 1 - Committee Meetings (FY19 Goal = 10) % Completion 70%

Task 2 – Technical Documentation No. Activity Month

1 Review DEQ Consent Orders for unpermitted poultry houses that appear to require a groundwater withdrawal permit. Aug

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Review draft poultry house Groundwater Withdrawal Applications for 41 applications provided to the Groundwater Committee. The review focused on location of the proposed withdrawals, target aquifers, requested amounts, and considerations for the groundwater resource.

Aug

3 Reviewed proposed additional activities for the Groundwater Committee to consider for FY2019. Aug

4 Supplemental Water Quality information on Columbia aquifer and Yorktown-Eastover aquifers. Sep

5 Information on Columbia (Surficial) aquifer Yield and Quality Summary. Oct 6 Presented potential legislative options for promoting Columbia aquifer use Nov 7 Presented summary of the 2nd Annual DEQ Groundwater Information Exchange Dec

8 Completed update of the Northampton County and Accomac County Water Supply Plans for DEQ Dec

9 Presented summaries of legislative bills introduced in the General Assembly Jan 10 Presented summary of 2013 Groundwater Protection Plan Feb

Task 3 - Groundwater Permit Review Applicant Permit Status Month Annual Amount (Gal)

None Task 4 – Implement Committee Work Plan

Activity Month(s) Outcome

Columbia (surficial) aquifer research. October Identified research needs for the Columbia aquifer and methods to provide the information that have the greatest cost/benefit.

HB 1036 Groundwater Trading Work Group October

Trading work group met October 22 for the initial meeting to review past findings of the work group and discuss agenda for next meeting.

Task 5 – Progress Reports % Completion 70%

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EASTERN SHORE OF VIRGINIA

GROUND WATER COMMITTEE FY 2019 ATTENDANCE RECORD

Members Term Exp.

July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June

Accomack Co. Jim Belote June 30,

2019 * X X X X X X X Grayson Chesser * X X X X X X Daniel Hershey

June 30, 2019 * X X X X X X

Paul Muhly * X X X X X X X Northampton Co. Eugene Hampton

October, 2019 * X X X X X X

John Coker * X X X X X X X Robert Meyers

December, 2019 * X X X X - - - - - -

John Salm January, 2020 * X X X X X

Taylor Dukes January, 2021 * - - - - - X X

Non-Voting Ex-Officio Members Mike Mason NA * X X X ( ) X ( ) Charles Kolakowski NA * X

Elaine Meil NA * X X X X X - Indicates not a member. X Indicates member present. * Indicates no monthly meeting held. NA Not Applicable ( ) Indicates an alternate present

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Supreme Court will consider letting groundwater pollution escape regulation under Clean Water Act Ledyard King and Richard Wolf, USA TODAY

Published 1:13 p.m. ET Feb. 19, 2019 | Updated 2:21 p.m. ET Feb. 19, 2019

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide if contamination of groundwater that seeps into rivers, lakes and oceans violates the Clean Water Act. Dumping pollutants directly into navigable bodies of water is prohibited by the 47-year-old law, but it is less clear about indirect sources. Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Hawaii's Maui County violated the law by injecting treated sewage from a wastewater treatment plant into the groundwater, some of which enters the Pacific Ocean. The high court will hear the county's appeal next fall. "If the Supreme Court reverses the lower courts’ decisions, chemical plants, concentrated animal feeding operations, oil refineries, and other industrial facilities would effectively have free rein to discharge pollutants indirectly into the nation’s waterways without Clean Water Act permits," the environmental group Earthjustice warned Tuesday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit came to a similar conclusion last year in a South Carolina case involving an underground pipeline that burst in 2014, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline. Some of the fuel seeped into nearby rivers, lakes, and wetlands, including the Savannah River However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit did not take the same view in a Kentucky case, in which pollutants from coal ash retention ponds seeped into groundwater that fed local waterways. The court said only pollutants added directly to navigable bodies of water were regulated under the law. The Supreme Court's decision to hear the case comes about two months after the Trump administration announced it was rolling back an Obama-era regulation that has become a rallying cry for farmers and property-rights activists opposed to federal overreach. Undoing a regulation President Donald Trump has called "a massive power grab," the new proposal would ease Washington's oversight of small bodies of water. It would replace an Obama administration regulation, known as the Waters of the United Statesrule, that expanded federal protections to smaller rivers and streams. Andrew Wheeler, the Environmental Protection Agency's acting administrator, said states should oversee most ditches, land that fills with water when it rains, certain wetlands that have been used to grow crops, storm water control ponds, and water and wastewater treatment systems. Additionally, groundwater would not be federally protected, a category Wheeler said never should have been included.

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Pentagon Pushes for Weaker Standards on Chemicals Contaminating Drinking Water By Eric Lipton and Julie Turkewitz March 14, 2019

WASHINGTON — Facing billions of dollars in cleanup costs, the Pentagon is pushing the Trump administration to adopt a weaker standard for groundwater pollution caused by chemicals that have commonly been used at military bases and that contaminate drinking water consumed by millions of Americans. The Pentagon’s position pits it against the Environmental Protection Agency, which is seeking White House signoff for standards that would most likely require expensive cleanup programs at scores of military bases, as well as at NASA launch sites, airports and some manufacturing facilities. Despite its deregulatory record under President Trump, the E.P.A. has been seeking to stick with a tougher standard for the presence of the chemicals in question in the face of the pressure from the military to adopt a far looser framework. How the administration resolves the fight has potentially enormous consequences for how the United States is going to confront what a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called “one of the most seminal public health challenges” of the coming decades. The problem is not limited to military bases. An estimated five millionto 10 million people in the country may be drinking water laced with high levels of the chemicals, known as Per-and polyfluoroalkylsubstances, or highly fluorinated chemicals. They include thousands of people who live near military bases in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. PFAS, as the chemicals are most commonly called, are present in a vast array of products, including food packaging, nonstick pans, clothing and furniture. They have been linked in recent years to cancers, immune suppression and other serious health problems. But since the 1970s, the Defense Department has been one of the most frequent users of PFAS. The chemicals are a key ingredient in firefighting foam employed at bases nationwide, with military crews spraying large amounts during training exercises (and on emergency calls) into unlined basins that drain into the soil and then into groundwater. In 2017, after military communities around the country began to report alarming levels of PFAS in their drinking water, the Pentagon confirmed that there were 401 known military facilities in the United States where it was used. Further study by the Pentagon concluded that the PFAS contamination had turned up in drinking water or groundwater in at least 126 of these locations, with some of them involving systems that provide water to tens of thousands of people both on the bases and in nearby neighborhoods. In some instances, the Defense Department is providing temporary replacement water supplies. The military and many airports nationwide have relied on PFAS-based firefighting spray because it can more quickly put out liquid fuel fires and it works when mixed with both fresh water and seawater. The Defense Department has been moving in recent years to phase out the use of the most worrisome version of these chemicals and replace them with a formulation that does not break down in the environment as easily or build up as much in the bloodstream if it ends up in drinking water. But this replacement chemical is also generating health concerns.

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The E.P.A. — after intense criticism from communities facing contaminated water, as well as from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill — is moving toward creating two new PFAS standards to address the problem nationwide. The first would establish guidelines for when cleanups will be required at federally controlled sites to try to prevent that contamination from reaching drinking water supplies. The second would set a legally binding, maximum allowable drinking water level for PFOS and PFOA, two of the most common forms of PFAS. Separately, the E.P.A. is preparing to designate these chemicals hazardous substances, meaning areas contaminated can be designated Superfund sites, formalizing the cleanup effort. The E.P.A. completed its work on the first step, the proposed groundwater cleanup standard, last August, and transferred it to the White House Office of Management and Budget for approval, with a prediction that it would be finalized and made public by last fall. But federal officials briefed on the negotiations, including the office of Senator Thomas R. Carper, Democrat of Delaware, the ranking member of the Senate committee that oversees the E.P.A., said major objections were raised by the Pentagon, as well as by NASA, another major user of PFAS, and the Small Business Administration. Among the sites that could be subjected to a cleanup are NASA’s launch sites at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and Wallops Island, Va. The E.P.A., Mr. Carper said, proposed that contaminated sites be cleaned up to a level equivalent to the E.P.A.’s current drinking water health advisory of 70 parts per trillion of PFOS and PFOA, citing information provided to his office. But the Pentagon, in a report to Congress last year, indicated that it believed that an appropriate cleanup level for PFAS would be 380 parts per trillion, or nearly six times the proposed E.P.A. advisory drinking water level. That 380 parts per trillion is also more than 30 times a level suggested as safe for drinking water by the Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. (One part per trillion is equivalent to one drop of water in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools.) The Defense Department has also argued that the two variants of these chemicals — PFOS and PFOA — should be counted separately, as opposed to the E.P.A., which wanted the combined total to be used as the groundwater standard, Mr. Carper said in a letter sent this week to the E.P.A. The Pentagon has agreed to clean up groundwater to the 70 parts per trillion standard, if contamination of either of the chemicals at a site is found above 400 parts per trillion, according to Mr. Carper’s letter. That would mean many sites that would have been subject to cleanup requirements based on the E.P.A.’s original proposal would now be able to avoid such remediation efforts — and costs — potentially polluting drinking water in the future. “Many of these sites have languished for years, even decades. How can these Americans prosper if they cannot live, learn, or work in healthy environments?” Mr. Carper said in his letter, quoting Andrew Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator, in his own words during Mr. Wheeler’s recent confirmation hearing, as Mr. Carper urged Mr. Wheeler not to give in to pressure from the Pentagon. “Please take prompt action to finalize groundwater clean-up guidelines for PFAS that live up to your stated objectives and reject efforts by other federal agencies to weaken them,” Mr. Carper wrote. Patrick M. Shanahan, the acting secretary of defense, was asked about the matter on Thursday during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Mr. Shanahan told Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire,

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where there is also a military-base related contamination problem, that he was not aware if the Pentagon was trying to weaken the groundwater standard. But he said he would look into it “very quickly.” Frustration is only increasing across the United States as the Trump administration moves slowly to confront the challenge. Just Wednesday, the Vermont Senate voted 29 to 0 in favor of legislation that would create a new limit on PFAS in drinking water that at 20 parts per trillion is far tougher than even the current E.P.A. drinking water advisory standard. The legislation will also require annual testing by public water systems in the state. The move was motivated in part by widespread contamination caused by a manufacturing plant in Bennington, Vt., called Chemfab, that once made fabrics and roofing materials coated with the chemicals. Chemfab is now closed. Maureen Sullivan, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for environment, told a House panel last week that a “very, very rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation” yielded an estimate that the Pentagon was facing a $2 billion cleanup effort. But the price tag depends a great deal on what the government decides represents “clean.” Heather Babb, a Pentagon spokeswoman, declined to address what specific number the Defense Department is urging the White House to adopt as the new groundwater cleanup standard. The department “will work in collaboration with regulatory agencies and communities to ensure our resources are applied effectively to protect human health across the country as part of a national effort led by E.P.A.,” she said in a written statement. “However, we do not discuss the details of our interagency coordination.” A NASA spokeswoman and a spokesman for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget both declined to comment. Jennifer McLain, the acting director of the E.P.A.’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, declined to discuss the different proposals, but she did not dispute that the E.P.A. and the Pentagon have different points of view. “Each one of those agencies has a different mission and will be looking at the issue from a different perspective,” she said. Several state and local governments — including the Security Water District in Colorado, the city of Newburgh, N.Y., and the state of New Mexico — have already filed lawsuits against the Defense Department. In Oscoda, Mich., a community near the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base, use of the chemicals has polluted drinking water, lakes, rivers and wildlife, and toxic foam now froths on community beaches. The town and the state are battling with the military over how much cleanup should be done. Aaron Weed, an Air Force veteran who is now Oscoda’s town supervisor, called the response “disgraceful.” “It’s just been constant pushback,” he said. “‘It’s not a big deal, it’s going to cost too much, the technology isn’t there,’ Every cause they can think of.” Eric Lipton reported from Washington, and Julie Turkewitz from Denver.

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Statement: PFAS hearing elevates need for policy reform

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing on the risks of toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Witnesses will include senior staff from the Department of Defense (DoD), as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Bart Johnsen-Harris, clean water advocate for Environment America, issued the following statement:

“It’s been six months since Congress’s first hearing on PFAS, and we still have a long way to go. On one hand, DoD needs to clean up their mess at military bases and prevent future contamination. And on the other, EPA needs to protect our health by limiting the use of PFAS, and by setting a strong drinking water standard of one part per trillion for the whole class of chemicals.

“Toxic PFAS contamination, from Colorado to Michigan to North Carolina, grows more serious by the day. These dangerous substances are, against all reason, still widespread in both production and use. We see them not only in the military’s firefighting foams, but everywhere from pizza boxes to water-repellent boots. They dissolve easily in water, and stay in the environment indefinitely. It’s ridiculous that, despite the known health effects of PFAS, we’re moving so slowly to clean them up.

“Today’s hearing is an opportunity to get solid commitments from DoD and EPA. In response to mounting pressure last month, EPA committed to begin the process for establishing a drinking water standard for two of the chemicals. But the agency must go further: the standard they set should be health-protective, it should apply to all PFAS, and it should happen fast. Likewise, DoD must commit to a timeline for transitioning to safer alternatives at military bases as soon as is feasible.”