American Government Is Better Than This
Congress has failed to adequately protect us from #PFAS chemicals like #PFOA, #GenX, and #Nafion byproduct pollution via the annual defense spending bill.
Adding PFAS chemicals to Superfund law via CERCLA and Clean Water Act was a basic first step for Congress to finally address decades of public health harm caused by this dangerous class of chemicals. Yet, this Congress failed to take that step.
A 2016 Harvard research study listed North Carolina as the third worst state in the nation for PFAS pollution. DuPont/Chemours dumped their PFAS chemical waste into our drinking water supply for decades--risking public health for a quarter of a million residents.
The chemical industry's failure to fully disclose the toxic effects of PFAS chemistry has caused widespread public health harm. Unassuming firefighters, businesses, and good, honest people use products filled with these toxic chemicals everyday. Farmers have unwittingly spread sewer sludge containing PFAS chemicals across their lands all over North Carolina.
North Carolina's wastewater treatment plants are discharging PFAS chemicals upstream of drinking water intakes..
North Carolina is home to the nation's largest military installation--Ft. Bragg, located in Fayetteville, NC. An EWG report listed Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, near Goldsboro, NC, as one of the Top 40 most polluted military installations for PFAS groundwater contamination in the nation.
Both the military and PFAS chemical makers, like DuPont/Chemours, are responsible for the majority of our PFAS public health crisis across the nation and in North Carolina.
Have you heard from your North Carolina congressional delegates? Did they come out strong publicly demanding Congress address this PFAS chemistry nightmare?
Arguably the best quote from Dark Waters is when Tim Robbins says "American business is better than this!" well so is American government.
The fact this Congress couldn't even get a well documented-linked-to-six-diseases-including-two-cancers-no-longer-made-in-America-chemical (PFOA), regulated under CERCLA and Clean Water Act is an embarrassment to our nation.
The military spent $2 trillion dollars fighting an 18 year war in Afghanistan which the New York Times reports got us little to nothing. Yet, Congress couldn't be bothered to spend 0.1% of that to clean up PFAS chemicals??
Residents from North Carolina and all across the country traveled to DC to explain their needs. We participated in the civic process. We told intimate stories of private health matters in the hopes those exchanges would have value in the decision making process.
When we go to DC, we are asked to share the most painful parts of ourselves. These stories validate the work Congress does. At the end of the day--all we have are our stories. This is the most basic currency of our existence. Your story. My story. Our story. Were these stories honored yesterday? Were they validated?
As it stands right now, the Department of Defense (DOD) is the largest polluter of PFAS chemicals in the country and Congress was too cowardly to autocorrect the untold damages done to farmers, military families, and the communities that support them. A new timeline released today by EWG and our friends at Fountain Valley Clean Water Coalition in Colorado shows the timeline of DOD’s use of PFAS in firefighting foam. It shows the military knew as far back as the 1970s that PFAS firefighting foam was harmful to environmental and human health.
Yet, the military didn't act alone. Big chemical companies gave the DOD a *drug* they couldn't quit. Companies like 3M/DuPont/Chemours have been profiting off of military contracts using PFAS chemicals for decades at the expense of our health.
American government is better than this. That should be a statement. Not a question.