Lara Beaven of Inside PFAS Policy reports that Maine farmers have joined litigation against the Environmental Protection Agency for not yet regulating the presence of PFAS in sewage sludge. The plaintiffs in that litigation...more
Less than ten days after setting drinking water standards for six of the hundreds of chemicals known collectively as PFAS, EPA has now identified two of those PFAS that have been widely used for decades, PFOA and PFOS, as...more
A little over five years ago, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation gave Federal Judge Richard Gergel of South Carolina the burden of disposing of any cases “alleg[ing] that AFFF products used at airports, military...more
Lara Beaven, of Inside PFAS Policy, has an excellent report on the Defense Department's motion to dismiss claims for injunctive relief against the military in the AFFF multi-district litigation continuing before Federal...more
Some of you may be old enough to remember the movie Wall Street and, if you are, you might remember that just before Bud is taken into federal custody, Lou says “man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him....more
While I was on vacation last week, EPA proposed to identify as “hazardous constituents” nine of the “forever chemicals" known collectively as PFAS. EPA's proposal will now be subject to public comment before perhaps being...more
Lara Beaven of Inside PFAS Policy is reporting on another PFAS citizen suit under the Federal Clean Water Act. This one, by Tennessee Riverkeeper, alleges that PFAS are being discharged from a former Lebanon, Tennessee...more
Many of the nation's public water suppliers and certain manufacturers of PFAS used in fire fighting foam are one step closer to massive class action settlements after a “fairness hearing” before Federal District Court Judge...more
Yesterday, I spoke with Sarah Mattalian, an Inside EPA reporter writing a story about the suggestion by an EPA official that EPA might require additional PFAS investigations and clean up at properties that had already been...more
11/15/2023
/ Brownfield Properties ,
CERCLA ,
Chemicals ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) ,
Investigations ,
PFAS ,
Public Health ,
Remediation ,
Site Remediation ,
Soil
Since EPA published its PFAS road map just a little more than two years ago, I've often commended EPA for its ambitious plan to regulate the forever and everywhere chemicals known collectively as PFAS. After all, if, as EPA...more
Yesterday, I spoke with Sarah Mattalian, an Inside EPA reporter writing a story about the suggestion by an EPA official that EPA might require additional PFAS investigations and clean up at properties that had already been...more
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously exclaimed sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. Of course the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Rome News-Tribune endorse that proposition. And, the newspapers...more
10/10/2023
/ Discharge of Pollutants ,
Drinking Water ,
Environmental Litigation ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Georgia ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Multidistrict Litigation ,
New Legislation ,
PFAS ,
Settlement ,
State Legislatures ,
Water
One of the two things in EPA's National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative for PFAS that caught my eye also caught the eye of Suzanne Yohannan at Inside PFAS Policy.
That thing was that EPA Assistant Administrator...more
This week Judge Gergel tentatively approved the $1.2 billion settlement between DuPont (and related companies) and water suppliers now dealing with the fact that EPA and many States have concluded that the most minute...more
8/24/2023
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Appeals ,
Clean-Up Costs ,
Drinking Water ,
DuPont ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
PFAS ,
Public Health ,
Settlement ,
Water Supplies
After less than a month on the job EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) Chief David Uhlmann this week released a memorandum outlining EPA's National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives (NECIs) for the...more
In May I wrote about a manufacturer of Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) excused from the PFAS Multi-District Litigation in South Carolina because its PFAS-related liabilities might exceed its assets which is something for a...more
Everyone from Bloomberg to CNN to the Boston Globe is reporting today on US Geologic Survey research concluding that "nearly half" (45 percent to be precise) of US drinking water sources contain detectable concentrations of...more
James Russell Lowell wrote that one thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. This week's nearly 400 million dollar settlement between a New Jersey plastic manufacturer and the State of New Jersey over the...more
Bloomberg is reporting that 3M and the two companies responsible for the liability of what used to be DuPont have agreed to pay $100 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the City of Rome, Georgia for the cost of engineering...more
6/2/2023
/ 3M Company ,
Drinking Water ,
DuPont ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Environmental Violations ,
Manufacturers ,
PFAS ,
Public Health ,
Punitive Damages ,
Toxic Chemicals ,
Toxic Exposure
Hundreds and hundreds of claims for personal injury and property damage associated with PFAS contamination have been accumulating in the courtroom of a Federal Judge in South Carolina. A little over four years ago the Federal...more
Bloomberg Environment reports that a Georgia NGO has sued a textile manufacturer and the town in which the manufacturer is located over unpermitted discharges of the "forever chemicals" known collectively as PFAS into the...more
Inside EPA reports that the Maine Department of Environmental Protection is having a hard time implementing a 2021 Maine law that would, between now and the end of 2029, ban the sale of any new products with “intentionally...more
EPA continues to make measurable progress toward the milestones it established in its 2021 PFAS road map. It has arranged for an assessment of the risks posed by these "forever chemicals" and concluded, based on those...more
Massachusetts State Representative Kate Hogan seems to make a lot of sense when she says, about the continued widespread use of the "forever chemicals" known as PFAS, that "if we don't prevent it, all we're doing is...more
Three Judges of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals have dismissed the American Chemistry Council's complaint challenging EPA's interim health advisory levels for PFAS in drinking water. The ACC's case was dismissed, not for...more