Source: http://www.montgomerynews.com, June 24, 2016
By: Dan Sokil
A lawsuit is in the works on behalf of a family exposed to water contamination near the former Willow Grove airbase in Horsham, and that suit could grow much larger before all is said and done.
Philadelphia-based law firm Williams Cuker Berezofsky has notified the U.S. Navy and federal government that it intends to sue both parties over water contamination impacting families who live near the former base.
“What we’re trying to accomplish is to a large extent the same thing that the governor and the legislators and congressmen are trying to accomplish: blood testing, health monitoring and a health effect study,” said attorney Mark Cuker.
“The Navy, their mission is to protect the American people, and clearly, in terms of their environmental practices, they failed in that mission, and they really owe it to their neighbors to step up to the plate,” he said.
In recent weeks, local lawmakers have stepped up calls for the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense to address ongoing worries about contaminated water wells near the former Willow Grove base and the former Naval Air Warfare Center Warminster. In May, the EPA released more stringent standards for permissible amounts of PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), compounds associated with firefighting foam used at the former bases — and which Cuker said have left the area a “giant toxic mess” in need of cleanup.
“I think that’s a fair statement. If you have drinking water for 70,000 people impacted from two Superfund sites, that’s a pretty bad toxic mess,” he said.
The notice of intent to sue was filed on behalf of a family that lives near the Horsham base, according to Cuker, who used a private water well with what he termed “astronomical levels of contamination” before they learned in late 2014, by way of EPA testing, that their PFOA and PFOS levels were well above EPA advisory levels.
“They were exposed in their private well, and when they got hooked up to Warrington’s water, they got exposed again,” Cuker said, noting three of Warrington’s wells have recently been taken offline for being above the new EPA standards.
One other family went through the same sequence, of contamination on both private and public systems, but Cuker said he has been in touch with more area residents who have been impacted in various ways — some who have cancer they think may be linked to the contaminants, others “who are healthy, but are concerned about their futures.”
“The Navy has two months to decide how it wants to respond, whether it wants to ignore this or try to do something,” he said.
A Navy spokesman said Monday the Department of the Navy “does not discuss pending lawsuits or ongoing legal matters.” The Navy “will continue to proactively implement the necessary response actions to ensure public and private water supplies meet the EPA’s safe drinking water requirements.”
Cuker said the Navy does deserve credit for paying for filtration systems for the municipal wells taken offline after the new standards were announced last month and for providing bottled water to the residents with contaminated private wells.
The Navy has also said it intends to cover costs to connect residents with contaminated private wells to the public water authorities, Cuker said.
“Those are things we would ask for [in the potential suit], but the indications are the Navy is doing them anyway,” he said.
Cuker said in addition to residents worried about health risks from exposure to the contaminants, he’s also heard from former military personnel who worked at the bases and are worried about their exposure.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of people. There’s a tremendous amount of concern, a real concern that the Department of Defense was totally indifferent to the health and welfare of the residents in that community,” he said.
“I realize it’s cost of a lot of money. I realize there are hundreds of other sites potentially like this around the country. That’s not a reason to basically put your head in the sand and pretend it didn’t happen,” Cuker said.
Cuker said he also met with Warminster officials before the new lower EPA standard was announced and told them residents in that area were still using wells above EPA standards seen in other states.
“We basically told them they had wells online that people were drinking that have levels they shouldn’t be drinking, and they should go screaming to EPA about it,” he said.
“We said to them, ‘You should not tolerate this. You can’t accept this, you should not be drinking this, and you should demand more,’ and I believe they did.”