Tag:
PFAS
White Plains, NY
Politics
Chemistry Council Lobbyists Skirt Campaign Finance Laws: Rivertowns Activists Fight Back
In a David and Goliath standoff, 33 members of Beyond Plastics’s Lower Westchester Chapter, mostly Rivertowns residents, and 250 recycling and plastic reduction advocates met in Albany on May 7th to challenge industry lobbyists and encourage State legislators to Put People over Plastics. The group is fighting for passage of the NYS Packaging Reduction & Recycling Infrastructure Act (PRRIA) even as industry lobbyists try their best to kill it. With a strong PRRIA, New York has an opportunity to address the monumental scourge of plastic pollution and lead the nation in reducing wasteful si…
Albany, NY
News
NY’s Mounting Garbage Crisis Nears Breaking Point As Seneca Meadows Landfill Faces Shutdown
New York’s waste crisis is rapidly escalating as landfills near capacity and the state’s largest—Seneca Meadows—faces a looming closure in 2025, raising alarm statewide. Seneca Meadows, located in the Finger Lakes, currently handles 30% of New York City’s trash. If its permit expires without renewal in 2025, the fallout could overwhelm the state's waste infrastructure. At the core of this crisis is the rise of plastic production and a faltering recycling system. With microplastics entering our food, water, air, and even our bodies—and with links to serious health risks including endocrine d…
Arlington, VA
News
100+ Toxic Chemicals Found In Drinking Water Across VA, New Study Says
Drinking water in some Northeast states contains some of the highest levels of contaminants in the country, according to new data. The latest update to the Environmental Working Group's tap water database analyzed nearly 50,000 water systems nationwide between 2021 and 2023. The nonprofit identified 324 contaminants in drinking water, many at levels exceeding health-based guidelines. New York had the highest number in the region with 197 contaminants detected since 2013. New Jersey followed with 131, Pennsylvania with 123, and Connecticut with 120. Massachusetts recorde…
Newburgh, NY
News
Contaminated Water In These NY Towns Has Lasting Health Effects, National Study Underway
A national study is measuring the effects of contaminated drinking water in nearly a dozen regions of the country including towns near a Hudson Valley National Guard base. The contaminants, known as PFAS, are also called “forever” chemicals because they stay in bodies for many years and have been linked to potentially serious health problems. In many cases, the source of PFAS in the groundwater is likely past use of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) in the area. At airports and military bases, the foam is used as a fire suppressant to extinguish flammable liquid fires such as fuel fires. Th…
Bristol, PA
News
Contaminated Water In These PA Towns Has Lasting Health Effects, National Study Underway
A national study is measuring the effects of contaminated drinking water in 10 regions of the country including towns near military bases in Pennsylvania. The contaminants, known as PFAS, are also called “forever” chemicals because they stay in bodies for many years and have been linked to potentially serious health problems. In many cases, the source of PFAS in the groundwater is likely past use of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) in the area. At airports and military bases, the foam is used as a fire suppressant to extinguish flammable liquid fires such as fuel fires. The studies are bei…
Washington Township, NJ
News
'Forever Chemicals' NJ Town's Water Center Of Major Study
Researchers at Rutgers University will be studying the long-term health effects of chemicals in a Gloucester County town's contaminated water supply. The pollution came from a plastics plant near Paulsboro. Solvay Solexis and Arkema of West Deptford settled a class-action lawsuit to clean up the drinking water believed contaminated back to 1980. PFAS — which are "forever" chemicals — are man-made chemicals that have been used in industry and manufacturing of consumer products since the 1950s, Rutgers says. Paulsboro, a town of 6,000 on the Delaware River, recorded the highest rate of …
Bergenfield, NJ
News
Bergen's Tap Water Ranks 4th For Toxins In U.S., But Read This Before You Panic
The toxins are ubiquitous. They could be harmful. But New Jersey isn't the only state flooded with them, experts say. A sample of Bergen County's tap water (taken from Bergenfield last August) contained the fourth highest concentration of an increasingly-common group of toxins in the U.S., according to a series of lab tests by the Environmental Working Group. The EWG for the first time found the chemicals known as "PFAS" in the drinking water of dozens of U.S. cities, confirming that the number of Americans exposed to the chemicals by way of their drinking water "has been dramatically unde…
Brentwood, NY
News
Alert Issued After Contaminated Eel Discovered On South Shore
Eel lovers on Long Island are being warned to avoid eating any locally-caught due to the possibility of contamination from potential carcinogens commonly found in firefighting foam and nonstick coatings, said the Suffolk County Health Department. The department said it is advising individuals who consume American eel taken from south-shore tidal areas between the Carmans River near Yaphank, and Quantuck Creek near Quogue, of recent preliminary findings for elevated levels of had much higher levels of the chemicals called per-and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). "The preliminary…
