Government and Politics
December 8, 2022
From: Connecticut Governor Ned LamontHARTFORD, CT – Governor Ned Lamont on Dec 8th, provided an update on the work the Connecticut Interagency PFAS Task Force has accomplished to date to mark the third anniversary of the state’s PFAS Action Plan.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of more than 12,000 manmade chemicals that have been widely used in household, commercial, and industrial products and processes since the 1950s for their water, oil, and dirt repellant and heat resistant properties. Some of the most studied PFAS chemicals do not break down in the environment and are harmful to humans and animals at very low levels.
In July 2019, following the accidental release of PFAS-containing aqueous film forming firefighting foam (AFFF) to the Farmington River, Governor Lamont directed the formation of an interagency workgroup chaired by the commissioners of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) and composed of representatives from nearly twenty state agencies and entities.
The task force was charged with developing an action plan including a comprehensive strategy to:
“In the three years since we brought this group together and finalized our action plan, our state agencies have been hard at work to get a handle on this problem and identify and implement ways of getting PFAS out of our environment,” Governor Lamont said. “Even through the pandemic, our agencies have delivered on that plan, and rather than putting it on a shelf, have actively improved our understanding of where PFAS is located. We’ve implemented better standards for our drinking water, successfully removed most AFFF foam from our fire departments, we’ve taken steps to ban it as an additive in our food packaging, worked with public water systems on proactive sampling for PFAS and local communities to mitigate human exposure if found, and so much more. We still have a long way to go, but we’re much further along than when we started, and I commend our state agencies and their amazing leaders on their progress.”
“The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the Department of Public Health, and our fellow task force partners have accomplished an incredible amount of work since 2019, implementing key recommendations from the PFAS Action Plan,” DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes, who serves as co-chair of the PFAS Task Force, said. “PFAS is pervasive, and the work completed to date has provided us with crucial entry points and footholds into the issue that will enable us to continue to build upon this critically important work and protect the health of our residents and our environment. I’m grateful to the governor for leading this charge, and to our task force partners for their efforts to date and their continued collaboration going forward.”
“Just last spring, the Department of Public Health updated its drinking water action levels for PFAS, which reflect the evolving scientific evidence on their toxicity and are more protective of public health than the previous Connecticut action levels,” DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, MD, who also co-chairs the PFAS Task Force, said. “Connecticut’s drinking water action levels protect all residents, including sensitive populations, from adverse health effects due to exposure to PFAS in drinking water. This is just one recent example of the extraordinary work that has come out of this action plan.”
Some of the task force’s progress to date includes:
Next steps include:
For more information on the Connecticut Interagency PFAS Task Force, click here.
**Watch: December 8 meeting of the Connecticut Interagency PFAS Task Force