Amendment #122 to S3141

PFAS Trust Fund

Ms. Hogan of Stow moves to amend the bill by adding the following sections:

SECTION XXXX.  Chapter 10 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 35SSS the following section:-

 Section 35TTT. (a) As used in this section, the following words, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, shall have the following meanings:-

 “Board of health”, any body politic or political subdivision of the commonwealth that acts as a board of health, public health commission or a health department for a municipality, region or district, including, but not limited to, municipal boards of health, regional health districts established pursuant to G.L. c. 111, § 27B and boards of health that share services pursuant to G.L. c. 40, § 4A or other legally constituted governmental unit within the Commonwealth having the usual powers and duties of the board of health of a city or town.

 “Commissioner”, the commissioner of the department of environmental protection

 “Department”, the department of environmental protection

 “Fund”, the PFAS Remediation Trust Fund established in this section.

 “Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances” or “PFAS”, as defined or regulated by the department or identified, on the basis of a health assessment conducted pursuant to the department’s drinking water regulations, as posing an unacceptable health risk to consumers.

 “Regional system”, any system established by mutual agreement of two or more municipalities or a county in which all municipalities of said county have an agreement where such system provides drinking water or wastewater services, or both, through shared facilities, sources or distribution networks.             

 (b) (1) There shall be a PFAS Remediation Trust Fund. Expenditures from the fund shall be made by the department, without further appropriation and consistent with this section, the terms of settlements, judgments, and awards made in connection with claims arising from the manufacture, marketing or sale of PFAS and PFAS-containing products, and consistent with the terms of other allocations and monies transferred to this fund, as applicable. The commissioner shall administer the fund, shall prioritize expenditures to historically overburdened and underserved communities, and may make expenditures from the fund to develop and implement a multilingual outreach and education program pursuant to section 29 of chapter 21A of the General Laws.

 (2) The fund shall be expended to mitigate the impacts of PFAS contamination in the commonwealth, including PFAS contamination in drinking water, groundwater, soil, sediment, surface water, wastewater, sludge or sludge products, landfills, and other environmental media as appropriate. Such mitigation may include, but is not limited to, projects to assist counties municipalities, or other public entities with a direct impact on public water supplies, private well owners, and public water systems with the cost of PFAS treatment, assessment, and remediation, including but not limited to remediation projects, treatment, and mitigation. The commissioner shall make necessary expenditures from this account for the shared administrative costs of the operations and programs of the department related to the fund. The commissioner shall further direct that monies from the fund shall be expended to provide services in an amount reasonably related to such administrative costs. No expenditure shall be made from the fund that would cause the fund to be in deficit at the close of a fiscal year. Amounts credited to the fund shall not be subject to further appropriation and monies remaining in the fund at the end of the fiscal year shall not revert to the General Fund but shall instead be available for expenditure during subsequent fiscal years. Any fiscal year-end balance in the fund shall be excluded from the calculation of the consolidated net surplus pursuant to section 5C of chapter 29 of the General Laws.

 (3) There shall be credited to the fund: (i) amounts recovered by the commonwealth and credited thereto in connection with claims arising from the manufacture and associated processes, distribution, marketing, or sale of PFAS and other PFAS-containing products; (ii) transfers from other funds authorized by the general court and so designated; (iii) funds from public or private sources, including, but not limited to, gifts, grants, donations, rebates, settlements, judgments, awards, and other allocations received by the commonwealth designated to the fund; and (iv) any interest earned on such amounts.

 (c) The commissioner may award and administer grants from the fund, without further appropriation, consistent with the purposes of the fund described in this section. Further, subject to this section, such grants may be made, without limitation, to: (i) municipalities and counties for municipal and county use, including, but not limited to, establishing connections to regional and municipal systems and funds necessary to address the reasonable administrative costs of the municipality; (ii) boards of health for use in assisting private well users; (iii) community water systems for use on an existing system or to expand a system to assist additional water users; (iv) non-transient non-community water systems; and (v) transient non-community water systems, (vi) other grants.

 (d) The department may adopt regulations, rules, or policies for the use of monies in the fund, and may include conditions in grant documents to require that that applicants disclose any funds recovered from liable third parties or other sources to cover any costs eligible to be reimbursed by said grant programs and to deduct said recovered funds from the total costs in the grant application. The department may also require any person awarded a grant for cost reimbursement to report the recovery of any such costs in the future and to reimburse the fund by reimbursing such recovered costs to the department. The department may further adopt regulations, rules, or policies establishing criteria to ensure that an applicant may not be eligible for grants for any project or portion of a project to the extent the negligence of the applicant’s illegal and knowing action caused the contamination that resulted in the exceedance of applicable state or federal standards for PFAS in drinking water, groundwater, soil, and other environmental media.

 (e)(1) The department may consult with the department of public health to provide funding from the fund for boards of health to establish rebate and grant programs for the reimbursement of private well users and owners for the costs of private well water sampling, the installation, and operation and maintenance of PFAS treatment systems. Eligible spending for rebates or grants shall include, but is not limited to, sampling of private well water for those PFAS that are regulated for private and public water systems by the department’s drinking water regulations and installation of permanent treatment systems to remove PFAS from drinking water. Eligible spending for rebates and grants shall include, but is not limited to, payment to vendors for PFAS water testing and installation and maintenance of PFAS treatment systems, provided that such private well users and owners can establish that their income was below the state median household income rate in the year in which the costs were incurred and that such costs were incurred after the effective date of this section.

 (2) Municipalities may elect to have their boards of health receive funding from the fund pursuant to any program established pursuant to paragraph (1), and boards of health may apply for and receive grants from the fund necessary to cover reasonable administrative costs related to implementation of said paragraph (1). Boards of health that elect to participate shall amend their codes to require private well water quality testing for PFAS for property sales and new construction consistent with model bylaws and ordinances provided by the department through program guidance.

 (3) Annually, not later than August 31, municipalities that elect to participate pursuant to paragraph (2) shall submit a report to the department including information demonstrating compliance during the preceding fiscal year with said paragraph (2) and other such information as required by the department.

 (g) Annually, not later than October 1, the department shall file a report on the activity, revenue and expenditures to and from the fund in the prior fiscal year with the clerks of the house of representatives and the senate and the house and senate committees on ways and means, and shall make the report available on the department’s website. The report shall include, but not be limited to: (i) revenue credited to the fund; (ii) the amount of expenditure attributable to the administrative costs of the department; (iii) an itemized list of expenditures from the fund; (iv) rebate and grant expenditures to private well users and owners and municipal administrative expenses of boards of health opting into such rebate and grant programs; and (v) data and a report of how resources have been directed to environmental justice populations.

Additional co-sponsor(s) added to Amendment #122 to S3141

PFAS Trust Fund