Pease water activist to meet EPA chief Amico plans to urge release of study on health effects of contaminants

PORTSMOUTH - Testing for Pease co-founder Andrea Amico is scheduled to meet with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C.

Amico, an environmental activist and community leader, will meet with Pruitt before the start of an EPA sponsored National Leadership Summit on PFAS exposure, she said Monday.

"I'm grateful for the opportunity and I look forward to a productive meeting," Amico said. "I'm cautiously optimistic that going into the meeting I can convey to him the perspective of impacted families and communities across the country.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so I'm very much looking forward to meeting an official in his position."

Amico will also attend the first day of the leadership summit in D.C.

Thousands of people working at Pease International Tradeport, along with children and infants who attended two day-care centers there, were exposed to multiple PFAS chemicals from contaminated water in the city-owned Haven well. That includes two of Amico's children and her husband.

The city of Portsmouth closed the polluted well at the former Air Force Base in May 2014 after the Air Force found high levels of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, in the well.

The EPA in May 2016 set permanent health advisories for PFOS and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA.

In addition to being a suspected carcinogen, some health studies have shown the toxic man-made chemicals could cause a variety of other harmful health effects.

Amico plans to urge Pruitt to release a draft Department of Health and Human Services study on PFAS health effects. The study, according to a story last week by Politico Pro, concluded PFAS chemicals can harm human health at levels far lower than the EPA has acknowledged. New Hampshire Democratic U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan have called for the release of the study, criticizing Pruitt and the Trump administration for holding it back.

The study also states PFAS chemicals can cause health effects at one-sixth of the EPA's health advisory level for PFOS and PFOA, which is 70 parts per trillion.

"I think the main things the community wants to convey to Administrator Pruitt is we want him to release the study and we also want him to set an MCL (maximum contaminant level) for all PFAS contaminants at a level much lower than 70 parts per trillion," Amico said.

Amico and a small group of other community leaders dealing with PFAS contamination around New England met with Alexandra Dunn, the EPA'sRegion 1 administrator, on May 8 in Boston.

Amico and the other leaders met with Dunn to ask her to allow community members to participate in the PFAS leadership summit, Amico said.

Dunn said the format for the national summit had already been set and the community members couldn't attend, but she promised to take their concerns that were outlined in a letter they gave to her and incorporate them into her speech at the summit, Amico said. Late last week, Amico received an email from Dunn telling her she had "important news," Amico said.

She then spoke to Dunn on the phone at about 7 on Thursday night.

"She had spoken with Pruitt and he said to invite me to the summit, and he would also like to speak to me personally," Amico said. "I was very surprised because I had been advocating very strongly for community members to be involved in the summit. This was a very surprising turn of events for me, and in a good way."

As excited as she was to get the invitation, Amico had to scramble to fit the trip into her schedule and make travel and hotel reservations.

"I'm very fortunate to have a significant amount of support in my life to allow me to work diligently at my advocacy efforts," Amico said.

In a press release about the summit, Pruitt said the event will "bring together stakeholders from across the country to build on the steps we are already taking and to identify immediate actions to protect public health."

Amico hopes the summit will result in a "plan to address this widespread issue in an efficient and time-sensitive way."

"We don't have years and years to wait for a plan. We need a comprehensive plan that will be delivered in a short period of time because a lot of communities are suffering from PFAS exposure," she said. "We need a coordinated and consistent effort across the federal agencies to help communities immediately."

Amico also praised Dunn for her "great leadership" on the issue and noted that Dunn has already committed to holding a Region 1 meeting after the summit.

The meeting is scheduled for June 25 and 26 and will be held at the tradeport in Portsmouth, Amico said. There has been no agenda set yet for the meeting, she said.