UNDATED, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — New legislation in Washington could help Michigan tackle PFAS contamination.
Earlier this week, a massive $245 million dollar settlement was reached in federal court to clean up a Kalamazoo River superfund site.
The deal struck with regulators puts the NCR corporation on the hook for restoration efforts and infrastructure improvements that could span decades.
But over in Washington, new funds have been approved to help prevent and locate the persistent presence of PFAS at sites around the state.
Michigan, with about 200 known contamination zones, has the worst PFAS problem in the country.
The new National Defense Spending bill includes provisions introduced by Senator Gary Peters, which bans the chemical in firefighting foams and develops new technologies to detect the substance in ground water.
In addition, Michigan’s PFAS Action Response Team is now working to collect firefighting foam that contains PFAS in a 1.4-million dollar disposal project.
More than 34,000 gallons of the foam will be collected statewide and shipped to Idaho, where it will be put into a licensed hazardous waste landfill.
This is all in an effort to eliminate the suspected carcinogen PFAS.
(Josh Scott contributed to this report)
