EDITORIAL Rep. Messmer's bills protect public health

By focusing her scientific expertise on an area of urgent need and then building bipartisan coalitions, Rep. Mindi Messmer, D-Rye, has had great success advancing legislation to protect the health and availability of drinking water on the Seacoast.

The Senate looks poised to pass House Bill 484, which continues the work of a task force created under former Gov. Maggie Hassan to investigate the first cancer cluster ever identified in the state of New Hampshire.

In February 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services identified a pediatric cancer cluster that found higher than expected incidences of two rare forms of cancer, rhabdomyosarcoma and pleuropulmonary blastoma, in Greenland, New Castle, North Hampton, Portsmouth and Rye.

That task force has sought information from the families whose children have cancer. With assistance from the Conservation Law Foundation, the task force has also tested for contaminants in wells and surface water surrounding the now-closed Coakley landfill. The surface water tests have revealed contaminants in concentrations far higher than the safety thresholds for drinking water recommended by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The task force has also been in touch with other families, not originally identified by the state, whose children have been diagnosed with rare cancers. The task force has already done vitally important work and we are pleased Gov. Chris Sununu has gone on record to say he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

House Bill 431 will create a commission to study long-term goals and requirements for drinking water in the Seacoast. This bill, which will address not only water quality issues but quantity issues as well, unanimously passed the Senate yesterday and is now headed for the governor’s desk. This commission would be positioned to study issues such as the water infrastructure problems in New Castle that were discovered the night of the Tarbell House fire in 2016 or the conflict between Stratham and the towns of North Hampton and Hampton, which are trying to stop the private water company Aquarian from supplying water to Stratham’s Wiggin Way Homeowners Association. As we all learned during the drought and watering bans this past summer, increased development, aging infrastructure and our steadily warming climate will tax our water supplies and distribution systems. This is a forward-looking commission whose work will increase in importance with each passing year.

House Bill 511 establishes a commission to study creating a public health oversight program within the Department of Health and Human Services. This program would investigate links between chronic diseases and the environment. It will also offer doctors protocols on how to help patients who have been exposed to toxins linked to health problems. For example, right now many adults and children at Pease know they have elevated levels of PFCs in their blood but don’t know what impact that will have on their health or what to tell their doctors about it. This commission would address ongoing health monitoring for people known to have been exposed to toxic chemicals.

Finally, House Bill 485 would lower the safety threshold for chemicals in the PFC family. The EPA last year lowered the threshold from 400 parts per trillion to 70 ppt. This bill would lower the safety threshold to 20 ppt, the same level as Vermont. This bill stalled in the House Finance Committee because the Department of Environmental Services estimated it could cost $30 million if implemented. Messmer hopes this bill will move out of finance and be voted on by the House sometime next year.

We applaud Messmer for her success in championing healthy and adequate water on the Seacoast and for work to create support for those who have been exposed to unhealthy water. We also thank members of both parties and the governor for putting partisanship aside and treating these bills as urgent matters of public health and giving them fair hearings.