Press Releases

Today, Congressman David Rouzer (NC-07) and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (ME-01) announced introduction of the Healthy Drinking Water Affordability Act (The Healthy H2O Act) in the United States House of Representatives.  The Healthy H2O Act would provide financial assistance to families and small businesses in rural communities to test their drinking water and fund the purchase, installation, and maintenance of water filtration systems to provide healthy drinking water and immediate and ongoing protections from known and emerging water contaminants, like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), lead, and nitrates.

"For many years, PFAS contaminants were discharged into the Cape Fear River from industrial facilities upstream," said Congressman Rouzer. "Since then, the state as well as local governments have spent millions of dollars and countless hours working to remedy the situation.  While I have continued to support legislative efforts to make PFAS a priority for the EPA, I’m proud to introduce bipartisan legislation to help families and small businesses in our rural communities receive better support on addressing the dangers of PFAS contamination.  The Healthy H2O Act will help identify health-based contaminants in drinking water that may pose risks to health and the environment.  By identifying these contaminants, our rural and underserved communities can then make progress to remedy the situation by utilizing grant funding to purchase and install cost effective water filtration systems.  We need a comprehensive and thoughtful approach to combat and understand the risks of PFAS, and I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress to ensure families in Southeastern North Carolina have access to safe drinking water." 

“As we work to protect communities from PFAS contamination, it is important to provide resources to keep our rural and underserved private well users from bearing the burden of additional filtration costs,” said North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth S. Biser. 

“Maine is experiencing a ‘forever chemical’ crisis, with more contaminated sites identified regularly. We’re ahead of the curve when it comes to testing for PFAS, which unfortunately is a sign that the rest of the U.S. likely also has high levels of contamination – they just don’t know it yet. In fact, it’s estimated that just about every American has traces of PFAS chemicals in their system,” said Congresswoman Pingree. “The Healthy H2O Act will make testing and treatment technology more accessible so we can address contaminants in our water, and so our communities can be protected against these harmful chemicals.”

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 (USDA) directly to individuals and to non-profits or local governments to help people go through the process of testing and then finding and installing a water treatment product to address their situation.
• Provide assistance to rural homeowners, renters, small business owners, licensed child-care facilities, and nonprofit organizations that can coordinate, facilitate, and assist in qualified water testing as well as serve as an educational resource.
• Require that the USDA publish public annual reports on the technologies available and purchased by eligible grant recipients, trends on steps taken to ensure safe drinking water in communities and households, and recommendations on increasing utilization of treatment.

Text of the legislation can be found here.