A new $3.6 million state grant will support plans to connect more than 50 homes with contaminated water to the Perkasie Regional Authority’s water supply.
PFAS, a family of hazardous synthetic chemicals used for decades in a wide range of products and firefighting foam, has been found in groundwater across the country.
Bucks and Montgomery counties have been hard hit by the pollutants and numerous efforts, including sweeping lawsuits, are underway to address the dangerous problem.
Last week, Bucks County state representatives Craig Staats, R-145, and Shelby Labs, R-143, announced the grant’s approval by the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority.
“The people of our community have not been forgotten,” said Staats, in a statement. “The cost of cleaning PFAS from drinking water is prohibitively expensive. It is a burden that should be carried by the governments that allowed its use,” the legislator said.
“This grant,” said Labs, “will go a long way in relieving the financial burden from homeowners who are in no way culpable for the use of this chemical.”
Additionally, the lawmakers said, the grant will pay for installing 10 new fire hydrants.
The grant comes at the same time Pennsylvania adopted new regulations around PFSA chemicals, setting new limits on two forms of the pollutants.
A maximum of 14 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and 18 ppt for PFOS, the state said, is intended to “protect against adverse developmental effects and adverse immune system effects.”
At the national level, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this month added nine PFAS to its Toxics Release Inventory.
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