Tom Udall: “let me, at the beginning, thank Senator Carper for his incredible leadership on the Environment and Public Works…”

“let me, at the beginning, thank Senator Carper for his incredible leadership on the Environment and Public Works Committee. He has a very good bill on cleaning up PFAS. I have signed on to it, and I am going to talk about some of the damage in New Mexico. As Senator Carper knows, this is a nationwide problem that the Department of Defense has major responsibility for. This is a photograph of Art Schaap at his dairy farm in New Mexico, where he owns 4,000 head of cattle. Art's farm is located outside of Clovis, in the central part of the State, adjacent to Cannon Air Force Base. Art is a second-generation dairy farmer. He and his family worked hard to build this dairy, keep his cows healthy, and provide nutritious milk to New Mexico and the Nation's consumers, but today Art will dump 15,000 gallons of milk. That is enough milk to give 240,000 children a carton of milk with their school lunch. He will dump another 15,000 gallons tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Why is Art dumping all of this milk? Because highly toxic contaminants from Cannon Air Force Base have polluted the groundwater he uses to water his cows. The groundwater Art uses for his cows and for his family's drinking water is polluted by a group of toxic chemicals collectively known as PFAS. We know PFAS are dangerous to humans. They are associated with increased risk of liver, testicular, kidney, and pancreatic cancer.…”