State Rep. Mary Whiteford, of Casco Twp., issued the following statement in response to the governor’s creation of a new panel to study the water advisory limit for PFAS: 

“Governor Whitmer has taken an important step to protect the health of all Michigan families that builds on 15 months of careful scientific investigation, research and management by the state’s interagency PFAS response team. I urge the governor’s new commission to put forward sound, peer-reviewed scientific recommendations that our Michigan families can trust. That is what they deserve.  

“Michigan has led the nation in PFAS detection and response and we continue to lead the way in assessing the impact these chemicals may have on human health. We have quickly adopted the Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking water limit as our environmental cleanup standard—to ensure no polluted site goes undetected. The Legislature alone has set aside up to $125 million to detect and contain PFAS contamination throughout the state. Some of these funds are being used to set a new lab that—when completed—will help to speed up detection of PFAS. We must continue to lead the way forward on this critical issue.  

 “Right now, our ability to detect smaller and smaller amounts of PFAS in our environment improves every day. However, our knowledge of how to clean up this contaminant efficiently and completely is still developing. I urge the governor’s committee to focus their efforts on cleanup as well as detection. I believe this will best complement our existing efforts to protect human health. The safety of our drinking water is too precious to ignore.”