GOVERNOR Ralph DLG Torres on Friday signed Senate Bill 22-40 which will limit the contamination of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS also known as “forever chemicals” in the CNMI.
Co-sponsored by Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider and Senate Floor Leader Vinnie Sablan, S.B. 22-40 is now Public Law 22-6.
According to the new law, PFAS have been used in a wide variety of consumer products and industrial applications, including, but not limited to, clothing, cookware, food packaging, carpets and upholstery, firefighting foam, electronics, and construction materials.
A common source of PFAS contamination in the CNMI is aqueous film-forming foam which contained concentrated PFAS and was utilized at fire training locations, Department of Defense installations, airports, and other fire-response sites.
The measure states that PFAS contamination “is of the utmost concern for the Commonwealth.”
“The Commonwealth’s natural resources, including its land, fish, wildlife, biota, air, water, groundwater, drinking water supplies, and other such resources, are invaluable and precious resources to the Commonwealth, and they are held by the Commonwealth government in trust for the benefit of the public. The Commonwealth and its citizens are heavily dependent upon its groundwater for its drinking water supply. The protection of the Commonwealth’s natural resources and the sources of fresh water on the islands, including groundwater, is thus of primary concern to the Commonwealth government, the steward and trustee of the Commonwealth’s natural resources,” P.L. 22-6 says.
It added that the regulation of PFAS “is necessary to protect our community from the harmful effects of PFAS exposure and seeks to establish enforceable limits for PFAS chemicals commonly found in the islands’ groundwater and drinking water.”
The new law limits the maximum PFAS contaminant level to 0.00007 mg/L (70 ng/L; 70 parts per trillion) for the sum of the concentrations of each of the following PFAS chemicals: perfluorooctanesulfonic acid or PFOS, perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, and perfluorononanoic acid or PFNA. This maximum contaminant level applies to all community water systems and all non-transient noncommunity water systems.
The law tasks the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality to promulgate a maximum contaminant level.
Ralph DLG Torres
