Waste

As Congress weighs barring the Defense Department (DOD) from procuring aqueous firefighting foam (AFFF) containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) due to contamination concerns, parties at large industrial and mining sites that may also have used the foam are growing increasingly concerned about their potential cleanup liability.

Officials in New York and New Jersey, two states with a large number of Superfund and other waste sites, are stepping up their efforts to test for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other emerging contaminants at the sites, raising industry fears over potential liability, lagging analytical abilities and unclear remediation requirements.

EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) is planning to review a broad range of Trump administration deregulatory policies in a relatively quick fashion in order to provide advice on the agency’s regulatory timeline, efforts that SAB Chairman Michael Honeycutt acknowledges will be difficult but adds that the board has voted to undertake.

State, tribal and individual plaintiffs suing EPA over the 2015 Gold King wastewater spill have won their bid for broad fact-finding into the failed cleanup that released over 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater from the site after a special court master rejected the agency’s argument for a more limited process that could have quickly ended the suit.