State Senator Edward Meyer
April 15, 2009
Meyer’s Clean Drinking Water Bill Passes Senate Unanimously
After Madison uranium scare, a desire for better communication
State Senator Ed Meyer (D-Guilford), the Senate Chairman of the Environment Committee, led passage in the Senate Wednesday of a bill which seeks to ensure that the traumatic ordeal some Madison residents experienced last fall upon learning that excessive uranium had been detected in some school and residential water supplies — and not reported — will not occur again.
The Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved Sen. Meyer’s Senate Bill 1021, “An Act Concerning Notification of Contaminants in Drinking Water,” which requires Connecticut’s public health commissioner to notify a city or town’s chief elected official in writing or by e-mail after obtaining test results that show that a contaminant in a public drinking water supply — including community and non-community water systems — exceeds the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s national primary standards. The commissioner must also state where the drinking water supply is located or used.
“We as a community should not have had to endure the kind of communication failure that we suffered in the fall of 2008. No community can, or should, have to endure that kind distress,” Sen. Meyer said. “I promised swift and decisive action to help prevent a repeat of what Madison parents and children were subjected to, and this is it. I hope we’ll soon see this bill sail through the House and be signed into law by Governor Rell.”
Sen. Meyer’s bill has secured an enviable record: a unanimous 27-0 vote in the Environment Committee, a unanimous 30-0 vote in the Public Health Committee, and a unanimous 36-0 vote in the Senate for a cumulative, unanimous vote total of 93-0.
“I’m very supportive of this bill, and Senator Meyer should be commended for taking the initiative to see this through,” Madison First Selectman Al Goldberg said. “I think we’ll all be more comfortable once this measure is signed into law.”
The bill — which now goes to the House of Representatives for consideration — is a direct result of the discovery in November 2008 of uranium levels three times the federal limit in the drinking water supplies at the Kathleen H. Ryerson Elementary School and Dr. Robert H. Brown Middle School and at a condominium.
Uranium contamination in drinking water does not present a radioactivity issue, but instead has been found to cause toxic effects on human organs, particularly the liver and kidney. These toxic effects are more harmful to children.
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Senator Meyer’s |
Listing of Senator Meyer’s recent press releases and a Press Kit with official head shots and bio. |
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