[Transcript:]
Lately, my neighbors and I have been doing something unsustainable: We’ve been testing our own water.
The kits we’re using cost under $100, and they test for a wide variety of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — otherwise known as “PFAS.”
Exposure to PFAS is linked to cancer, and so my neighbors and I wondered how much of these substances were in our water.
That’s because there’s very little data available from local, state, and federal sources — the organizations that should be testing and reporting these data to us.
When I got my results, I was concerned. My levels were high, but not high enough to be EPA “enforceable.”
My neighbors levels though, were.
One neighbor found results reported by the regional water authority. All their tests for the past several years were also EPA “enforceable.”
Why hadn’t we heard about it?
Our community raised money for more testing.
Neighbors published results. Our community supports — and I help advise — a local non-profit that shares this information more broadly.
But what does it matter when developers and towns can pay a fine rather than clean up the water?
What does it matter when our local government uses federal American Rescue Plan dollars — money intended for water and sewer infrastructure — for brick sidewalks and replacing basketball courts and playground equipment?
What does it matter when local officials allow companies — here it’s D.R. Horton — to build developments on critical watershed and at density levels that aren’t supposed to be allowed?
It’s unsustainable for my neighbors and I to keep testing our water ourselves. We’re already paying to have our water tested by paying local, state, and federal taxes.
But we need accountability.
The way forward shouldn’t always have to involve a lawsuit — after we develop cancer — to force local, state, and federal governments to do what the law already says they should be doing: providing clean water.
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