Credit: Youtube.com
The Air National Guard, U.S. EPA, and PA's Dept. of Environmental Protection are asking for the community's feedback on their plan to clean up PFAS contamination at the Biddle Air National Guard Base (former Horsham Air Guard Station). The public comment period is open NOW and will run through April 23, 2025.
"Last week, my staff joined a local meeting to discuss updates about environmental restoration activities (including PFAS contamination cleanup) on the former Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Willow Grove and the Biddle Air National Guard Base in Horsham — a top priority of mine since taking office," Sen. Maria Collett said.
Review the plans for removing PFAS.
You can submit comments to:
William Myer: [email protected] or 774-994-7265
Lee dePersia: [email protected] or 215-323-8387
Sen. Maria Collett (D-12 Montgomery) called on her colleagues to get more serious about PFAS pollution and announced plans to reintroduce legislation designating certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), specifically those most widely used in firefighting foams, as “hazardous substances” under Pennsylvania’s Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act (HSCA).
“My district has seen some of the highest levels of PFAS contamination in the nation due to decades of use of PFAS-containing firefighting foams on local military bases,” said Senator Collett, whose district includes the Biddle Air National Guard Base and shuttered Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Willow Grove. “These chemicals contaminated the groundwater, wells, and drinking water of hundreds of thousands of past and current residents of my district, not to mention the countless military and civilian employees who worked on these bases over the years.”
During floor remarks on Sen. Yaw’s SB 144, “Restricting PFAS Chemicals from Firefighting Foam,” Sen. Collett expressed her lukewarm support for SB 144 since it would limit the future use of “some” firefighting foams in “some” testing and training scenarios but emphasized that “[SB 144] does not address the more pressing problems faced by Pennsylvanians whose communities have already been contaminated.”
Sen. Collett implored her colleagues to sign on to her Pennsylvania PFAS Classification and Cleanup memorandum: “It is imperative that we act now to classify the PFAS chemicals used in firefighting foams as ‘hazardous substances’ under HSCA so that Pennsylvanians can finally hold polluters accountable in court.”
Sen. Collett directed her colleagues to the January 2020 federal court ruling in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which dismissed a civil suit brought by residents of her district against the US Navy for costs associated with health monitoring on the sole ground that PFAS weren’t classified as hazardous substances under HSCA.
“After visiting Beaver County in February and listening to the heart wrenching stories of Pennsylvanians impacted by last month’s train derailment in East Palestine, I don’t want to see them or anyone else suffer the same fate as my district,” added Sen. Collett.
