DEMOCRCAY NOW
In a major victory for environmental advocates, chemical giant DuPont and its related companies have agreed to pay $2 billion to clean up four industrial sites in New Jersey that are contaminated with “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, which have been found to persist in everything from rainwater to human breast milk. It is the third such settlement New Jersey has reached in less than three years, and marks a growing movement against the widespread use of PFAS, a class of chemicals still used to produce countless industrial and consumer goods, even though they have been linked to cancer and birth defects for over half a century. For more, we’re joined by investigative journalist Mariah Blake, the author of a new book on PFAS and the fight against them, to discuss the history of the pervasive toxins and the dangers they pose to human health.
Transcript
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
Officials in New Jersey have won what they say is the largest environmental settlement ever achieved by a single state, when chemical giant DuPont and its affiliates agreed to pay $2 billion to clean up four industrial sites contaminated with forever chemicals, or PFAS, which are widely used in industrial and consumer products, even though they’re linked to cancer and birth defects. It’s the third PFAS-related settlement New Jersey has reached in less than three years.
This is Maya van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, which is part of the litigation.
MAYA VAN ROSSUM: We have PFAS contamination of the fish that live in the Delaware River. It’s so insidious. And, of course, PFAS, PFOA, various members of this man-made family of chemicals, is literally in the bodies of people in New Jersey and nationwide, having devastating health consequences. … I think that this case really is going to send a message loud and clear that’s going to reverberate across the nation.
AMY GOODMAN: Studies show how PFAS contamination is now so ubiquitous that forever chemicals have been found in rainwater and the blood of almost all humans. This comes as the Trump administration has shuttered the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development, which helped test for PFAS.
And we’re going to talk about just what PFAS are with our next guest, Mariah Blake, investigative journalist and author of the new book, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals. It’s on Ralph Nader’s list of books to read this summer. Her guest essay for The New York Times is headlined “This Is How to Win an Environmental Fight: Meet the Unlikely Warriors on the Front Lines of a Major Environmental Battle.” In her book, Mariah Blake reveals how the U.S. government’s top-secret Manhattan Project, that developed the atomic bomb that was dropped 80 years ago this week on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was also responsible for the development of PFAS.
A lot to go through here. Mariah, welcome back to Democracy Now! First, start off by telling us what PFAS — P-F-A-S — are, and then talk about the victory in New Jersey. And then we’ll talk about this historic week, 80th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs on Japan, and how that links to PFAS. Start with what they are.
MARIAH BLAKE: OK. So, PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, are a large family of substances that have some pretty remarkable properties. They’re extremely resistant to heat, stains, water, grease, electrical currents. They stand up to chemicals that are so corrosive they burn through most other materials. And this has made them extremely useful. So, they helped usher in the aerospace travel and high-speed computing. They’ve transformed thousands of everyday items, from cookware to dental floss to kitty litter.
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