OPEN LETTER TO LOVELAND CITY HALL

by David Miller

We might be willing to celebrate your successes but you shouldn’t be so single-minded obsessed and addicted to them that you’ve been willing to lie to us about the most dangerous public health and financial crisis we’ve ever faced together as a community. On-going damage is being done to the unborn, real estate values, the local business community, and our private and public schools.

To paraphrase Lana Del Rey, “It’s like candy necklaces, you’re obsessed with it.”

Testing has revealed that Loveland has two “Forever Chemicals” in its drinking water. One, at a level four times higher than what is the enforceable standards of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This is the highest reported level in the area. US EPA has acknowledged that no levels of PFAS are safe without the risk of negative health impacts.

The Kathy Bailey Administration has jeopardized perhaps a hundred or so million of our collective dollars; maybe a billion. The citizens, your bosses, spotted the deception while it was in the closet, and sure enough, you opened the door for all to see when you told us the water you sell is perfectly safe to drink while simultaneously telling the Clermont County Common Pleas Court and a U.S District Court in South Carolina:

• Defendants’ intentional, negligent, and/or reckless conduct, as alleged in this Complaint, has resulted in the contamination of Plaintiffs Property with PFOA, PFOS, and/or their precursor chemicals and, without intervention by Plaintiff, would render water undrinkable.

• The gravity of the environmental harm resulting from Defendants’ Fluorosurfactant Products was, is, and wil be enormous because PFOA and PFOS contamination is widespread, persistent and toxic.

• “PFOA and PFOS are toxic and persistent in the environment, do not biodegrade, move readily through soil and water, and pose a significant risk to human health and safety and the environment.”

• “Through this action, Plaintiff seeks to recover compensatory and/or consequential damages for al past and future costs to investigate, treat, filter, remediate, remove, dispose of, and/or monitor the PFAS contamination of Plaintiff’s Property caused by the handling, storage, use, or disposal of Defendants’ Fluorosurfactant Products at and/or in the vicinity of Plaintiff’s Property, as well as any and all other damages recoverable under state and/or applicable federal laws.” 

Just like the young and restless, the Kathy Bailey Administration is obsessed with their head full of boastfulness.

Neither residents nor DuPont are stupid. When DuPont or one of the other 30 national and international companies you’ve sued discover that you knew forever chemicals were in the water we’ve been drinking yet made public statements that it was perfectly safe, they will certainly demand to the judge that the City of Loveland be removed as a plaintiff in the case against them.

The result will be to make us ineligible to deservedly receive the millions, perhaps billions of dollars we need to build a new water treatment plant. It will deny our firefighters the dollars they need to protect themselves and pay them compensation for their health needs.

Miley Cryus sings that we can buy our own flowers and we residents can do our own research and love each other better than you can. We didn’t want to leave you but we can. We can do things you can’t understand through your rose-colored glasses. We didn’t want to fight, but we will. We’ll hold our own hands. (WATCH NOW: “Forever Chemicals” in Loveland drinking water public meeting.)

Read the full lawsuit by scrolling below…

(The case has now been transferred to a U.S District Court in South Carolina.)

[pdf-embedder url=”https://lovelandmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Loveland-Forever-Chemicals-Lawsuit.pdf” title=”Loveland Forever Chemicals Lawsuit”]

Loveland Magazine’s PFAS Files