SAN FRANCISCO – Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an upcoming virtual listening session on EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap for communities in the Pacific Southwest region of our country, including the U.S. Pacific Island territories, on April 13, 2023, and is inviting members of the public to participate. This engagement session will provide information about EPA’s ongoing work under the PFAS Strategic Roadmap and what it means for communities in the Pacific Southwest. The session will also provide opportunities for communities to share feedback directly with EPA regional and program leaders to inform the actions described in the roadmap. In November 2022, EPA announced that it would hold a series of virtual regional community engagement sessions across the U.S.
EPA’s virtual regional community engagement session for the Pacific Southwest will be held via Zoom on April 13, 2023, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. PT. The public can register to participate in the community engagement session at: https://pfascommunityengagement.org/register/region9/
“The goal of this session is for us at EPA to share information about the latest actions EPA is taking to reduce PFAS exposure and contamination,” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman. “We want to hear from communities in the Pacific Southwest about their specific concerns and challenges in addressing PFAS contamination and how we can work together to overcome them.”
Background
In October 2021, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan announced the Agency’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap—laying out a whole-of-agency approach to addressing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are a category of manufactured chemicals that can cause serious health problems, including cancer, if people are exposed to them over a long period of time. The Roadmap sets timelines by which EPA plans to take specific actions and commits to bolder new policies to safeguard public health, protect the environment, and hold polluters accountable. The actions described in the PFAS Roadmap each represent important and meaningful steps to safeguard communities from PFAS contamination. Cumulatively, these actions will build upon one another and lead to more enduring and protective solutions.
In November 2022, EPA released “A Year of Progress Under EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap,” which underscores key actions taken by the agency during the first year of implementing the PFAS Roadmap. EPA continues to implement a whole-of-agency approach, advancing science, and following the law to safeguard public health, protect the environment, and hold polluters accountable. Concurrently with this one-year progress report, EPA announced that it will hold virtual community engagement events in each EPA region in 2023, which EPA’s Pacific Southwest region is announcing today.
These engagements align with recommendations from the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and EPA’s Roadmap commitment to engage directly with stakeholders. Recognizing the unique and pervasive impacts of PFAS on Tribal communities, EPA is also planning to hold a session specifically designed to hear from our Tribal partners.
More information on EPA’s efforts on PFAS is available at: www.epa.gov/pfas.
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