Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced the bipartisan Healthy Drinking Water Affordability Act, or the Healthy H2O Act, to provide grants for water testing and treatment technology directly to individuals and non-profits in rural communities. Maine continues to identify new sources of contaminated water and soil from chemicals like PFAs, but many smaller communities lack the resources to conduct testing to identify them and mitigation to remove them. Companion legislation was introduced in the U.S. House by Representatives Chellie Pingree (D-ME-01) and David Rouzer (R-NC-07).
“Maintaining and upgrading water and wastewater systems is vital to ensuring the economic and environmental health of our communities,” said Senator Collins. “This bipartisan legislation will help reduce health-based contaminants like PFAS in drinking water, increase consumer confidence, and protect public health.”
“All Wisconsin families, businesses, and communities should trust that the water coming out of their faucets is safe to drink, but across our state, rural communities are struggling to identify and treat chemicals like PFAs that endanger our health, especially for children,” said Senator Baldwin. “My bipartisan legislation ensures our small and rural communities aren’t left behind and makes sure they have what they need to find and get rid of dangerous chemicals and keep our families healthy.”
The Healthy H2O Act would provide grants for water quality testing and the purchase and installation of point-of-use or point-of-entry water quality improvement systems that remove or significantly reduce contaminants from drinking water. Grants would be provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture directly to individuals and to non-profits in rural areas, specifically to those in communities with a population under 10,000, to help people test their water and install a water treatment product if needed.
Across the United States and in Maine, communities face threats to their drinking water from a number of contaminants, including lead, arsenic, nitrates, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), PFOA, PFOS, hexavalent chromium-6, and others. This bill would provide grants for those living in rural communities to increase access to the many technologies for testing and water treatment at the point of use.
The complete text of the bill can be read here.
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