Advocates applaud passage of medical monitoring law - WCAX

MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) - Vermont environmental advocates are applauding a compromise medical monitoring bill signed into law by the governor this week that they say holds corporate polluters accountable.

There was an Earth Day march to the Statehouse Friday to urge action on climate initiatives and applaud a new bill signed into law. After vetoing two previous versions of the medical monitoring bill, Governor Phil Scott gave his seal of approval to S.113, a law that aims to make industrial polluters pay for medical monitoring of people exposed to toxic chemicals.

It’s the result of a years-long legal fight on behalf of Bennington residents exposed to PFAS contamination in their groundwater water from the nearby Saint-Gobain plastics plant. Scott says a $34 million class-action settlement with the company helped his decision.

Lawyers representing the plaintiffs say it’s a case of David versus Goliath. “I think it encourages other victims of industrial neighbors to make claims when they’ve been harmed,” said Emily Joselson with Burlington firm Langrock Sperry & Wool.

Those forever chemicals included in Teflon and other household products continue to be used and decades of PFAS-laden garbage sits in landfills, including Vermont’s only operating landfill in Coventry run by Casella. State officials, Casella, and the city of Montpelier are working on how to treat the landfill leachate to remove the PFAS. Currently, Montpelier treats the garbage juice but is unable to remove the chemical, sending it into the Winooski River and Lake Champlain. Casella says their permits to develop and test new filtration technology is delayed because of appeals from local environmental groups.

State leaders say we’ve only just begun what will be a lengthy effort to deal with the impacts of the forever chemicals. The bipartisan infrastructure law will bring $40 million over the next five years to try to address the problem.

“It’s not enough to deal with the entire problem but it’s enough to get started in understanding and putting toward some of the costly efforts that need to go into addressing the issue,” said the Vt. DEC’s Amy Polaczyk.

After that federal cash runs dry, it will likely require further commitment from the state, an expense environmental activists like James Ehlers say is worth it. “What’s more important than investing in public health, especially when you’re trying to get people to move here?” he said.

The new medical monitoring law will play a role in that conversation, too, allowing the state to sue chemical manufacturers who knowingly harm natural resources. “Communities across the state, including Montpelier, should be looking at -- is there a new opportunity for harm that we may be experiencing where the corporations that produced and profited off of these chemicals are responsible for the cleanup that we’re going to have to do,” said Lauren Hierl, a Montpelier City Council member and political director at the group Vermont Conservation Voters.

Most of the state’s PFAS is found in residential septic and sewage, from products we buy and consume. Leaders say it’s important to try to not use those chemicals, but that can be difficult given how widespread they are.

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source: https://www.wcax.com/2022/04/22/advocates-applaud-passage-medical-monitoring-law/

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