HOUSE . . . . . . . . No. 4486
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, March 25, 2024.
The committee on Public Health, to whom was referred the petition
(accompanied by bill, Senate, No. 1356) of Julian Cyr, Kate Hogan, Jack
Patrick Lewis, Joanne M. Comerford and other members of the General
Court for legislation to protect Massachusetts public health from PFAS,
the petition (accompanied by bill, Senate, No. 1431) of Michael O. Moore
and David Paul Linsky for legislation relative to chemicals in food
packaging, and the joint petition (accompanied by bill, House, No. 2197)
of Kate Hogan, Julian Cyr and others for legislation to protect public
health from PFAS, reports recommending that the accompanying bill
(House, No. 4486) ought to pass.
For the committee,
MARJORIE C. DECKER.
 FILED ON: 2/7/2024
HOUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No. 4486
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
_______________
In the One Hundred and Ninety-Third General Court
(2023-2024)
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An Act to protect Massachusetts public health from PFAS.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority
of the same, as follows:
1 SECTION 1. Chapter 10 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after
2 section 35SSS the following section:-
3 Section 35TTT. (a) As used in this section, the following words, unless the context
4 clearly requires otherwise, shall have the following meanings:-
5 “Ambient air”, that portion of the atmosphere, external to buildings, to which the general
6 public has access.
7 “Board of health”, any body politic or political subdivision of the commonwealth that
8 acts as a board of health, public health commission or a health department for a municipality,
9 region or district, including, but not limited to, municipal boards of health, regional health
10 districts established pursuant to G.L. c. 111, § 27B and boards of health that share services
11 pursuant to G.L. c. 40, § 4A or other legally constituted governmental unit within the
12 Commonwealth having the usual powers and duties of the board of health of a city or town.
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13 “Commissioner”, the commissioner of the department of environmental protection
14 “Department”, the department of environmental protection
15 “Fund”, the PFAS Remediation Trust Fund established in this section.
16 “Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances” or “PFAS”, as defined and regulated by the
17 department or identified, on the basis of a health assessment conducted pursuant to the
18 department’s drinking water regulations, as posing an unacceptable health risk to consumers.
19 “Regional system”, any system established by mutual agreement of two or more
20 municipalities or a county in which all municipalities of said county have an agreement where
21 such system provides drinking water or wastewater services, or both, through shared facilities,
22 sources or distribution networks.
23 (b) (1) There shall be a PFAS Remediation Trust Fund. Expenditures from the fund shall
24 be made by the department, without further appropriation and consistent with this section, the
25 terms of settlements, judgments, and awards made in connection with claims arising from the
26 manufacture, marketing or sale of PFAS and PFAS-containing products, and consistent with the
27 terms of other allocations and monies transferred to this fund, as applicable. The commissioner
28 shall administer the fund, shall prioritize expenditures to communities with vulnerable
29 environmental justice populations, and may make expenditures from the fund to develop and
30 implement a multilingual outreach and education program pursuant to section 29 of chapter 21A
31 of the General Laws.
32 (2) The fund shall be expended to mitigate the impacts of PFAS contamination in the
33 commonwealth, including PFAS contamination in drinking water, groundwater, soil, sediment,
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34 surface water, wastewater, sludge or sludge products, landfills, and other media as appropriate.
35 Such mitigation may include, but is not limited to, projects to assist counties, municipalities or
36 other public entities with a direct impact on public water supplies, private well owners, and
37 public water systems with the cost of PFAS treatment and remediation, including but not limited
38 to remediation projects, treatment, and mitigation. The commissioner shall make necessary
39 expenditures from this account for the shared administrative costs of the operations and
40 programs of the department related to the fund. The commissioner shall further direct that
41 monies from the fund shall be expended to provide services in an amount reasonably related to
42 such administrative costs. No expenditure shall be made from the fund that would cause the fund
43 to be in deficit at the close of a fiscal year. Amounts credited to the fund shall not be subject to
44 further appropriation and monies remaining in the fund at the end of the fiscal year shall not
45 revert to the General Fund but shall instead be available for expenditure during subsequent fiscal
46 years. Any fiscal year-end balance in the fund shall be excluded from the calculation of the
47 consolidated net surplus pursuant to section 5C of chapter 29 of the General Laws.
48 (3) There shall be credited to the fund: (i) amounts recovered by the commonwealth and
49 credited thereto in connection with claims arising from the manufacture and associated
50 processes, distribution, marketing, or sale of PFAS and other PFAS-containing products; (ii)
51 transfers from other funds authorized by the general court and so designated; (iii) funds from
52 public or private sources, including, but not limited to, gifts, grants, donations, rebates,
53 settlements, judgments, awards, and other allocations received by the commonwealth designated
54 to the fund; and (iv) any interest earned on such amounts.
55 (c) The commissioner may award and administer grants from the fund, without further
56 appropriation, consistent with the purposes of the fund described in this section. Further, subject
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57 to this section, grants may be made, without limitation, to: (i) municipalities and counties for
58 municipal and county useuse, including, but not limited to, establishing connections to regional
59 systems and funds necessary to address the reasonable administrative costs of the municipality;
60 (ii) boards of health for use in assisting private well users; (iii) community water systems for use
61 on an existing system or to expand a system to assist additional water users; (iv) non-transient
62 non-community water systems; and (v) transient non-community water systems.
63 (d) The department shall adopt regulations, rules, or policies for the use of monies in the
64 fund, and shall include conditions in grant documents to require that that applicants disclose any
65 funds recovered from liable third parties or other sources to cover any costs eligible to be
66 reimbursed by said grant programs and to deduct said recovered funds from the total costs in the
67 grant application. The department shall also require any person awarded a grant for cost
68 reimbursement to report the recovery of any such costs in the future and to reimburse the fund by
69 reimbursing such recovered costs to the department. The department shall further adopt
70 regulations, rules, or policies establishing criteria to ensure that an applicant shall not be eligible
71 for grants for any project or portion of a project to the extent the negligence of the applicant
72 caused the contamination that resulted in the exceedance of applicable state or federal standards
73 for PFAS in drinking water, groundwater, soil, and other environmental media.
74 (e) If the department provides a grant related to costs for a project for which a third party
75 might otherwise be liable, the right to recover payment from such third party, excluding public
76 sector fire departments for the use of Class B firefighting foam in emergency responses, shall be
77 subrogated to the department to the extent of such grant. Any money recovered by the
78 department from such third parties shall be deposited in the fund. Notwithstanding any other
79 general or special law to the contrary, the superior court shall have jurisdiction for subrogation
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 80 claims brought pursuant to this chapter, and civil actions brought by the attorney general for
81 subrogated claims to recover costs pursuant to this chapter shall be commenced within five years
82 from the date the commonwealth is assigned the rights to recover all such costs or five years
83 from the date the commonwealth discovers that the person against whom the action is being
84 brought is a person liable pursuant to law, whichever is later.
85 (f)(1) The department may consult with the department of public health to provide
86 funding from the fund for boards of health to establish rebate and grant programs for the
87 reimbursement of private well users and owners for the costs of private well water sampling,
88 installation, and operation and maintenance of PFAS treatment systems. Eligible spending for
89 rebate shall include, but is not limited to, sampling of private well water for those PFAS that are
90 regulated for public water systems by the department’s drinking water regulations and
91 installation of permanent treatment systems to remove PFAS from drinking water. Eligible
92 spending for grants shall include, but is not limited to, payment to vendors for PFAS water
93 testing and installation and maintenance of PFAS treatment systems, provided that such private
94 well users and owners can establish that their income was below the state median household
95 income rate in the year in which the costs were incurred and that such costs were incurred after
96 the effective date of this section.
97 (2) Boards of health may elect to receive funding from the fund pursuant to any program
98 established pursuant to paragraph (1), and may apply for and receive grants from the fund
99 necessary to cover reasonable administrative costs related to implementation of said paragraph
100 (1). Boards of health that elect to participate shall amend their codes to require private well water
101 quality testing for PFAS for property sales and new construction consistent with model bylaws
102 and ordinances provided by the department through program guidance.
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103 (3) Annually, not later than August 31, boards of health that elect to participate pursuant
104 to paragraph (2) shall submit a report to the department including information demonstrating
105 compliance during the preceding fiscal year with said paragraph (2) and other such information
106 as required by the department.
107 (g) Annually, not later than October 1, the department shall file a report on the activity,
108 revenue and expenditures to and from the fund in the prior fiscal year with the clerks of the
109 house of representatives and the senate and the house and senate committees on ways and means,
110 and shall make the report available on the department’s website. The report shall include, but not
111 be limited to: (i) revenue credited to the fund; (ii) the amount of expenditure attributable to the
112 administrative costs of the department; (iii) an itemized list of expenditures from the fund; (iv)
113 rebate and grant expenditures to private well users and owners and municipal administrative
114 expenses of boards of health opting into such rebate and grant programs; and (v) data and a
115 report of how resources have been directed to environmental justice populations. SECTION 2.
116 Chapter 21 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 43A the following
117 section:-
118 Section 43B. (a) The department of environmental protection shall amend each
119 groundwater discharge permit upon renewal with requirements for monitoring and reporting of
120 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances using United States Environmental Protection Agency
121 analytical methods as specified by the department.
122 (b) The department of environmental protection shall amend its surface water discharge
123 permits issued to industrial permittees and groundwater discharge permits issued to industrial
124 permittees upon renewal with requirements to implement best management practices for
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125 discharges of PFAS, including, but not limited to: (i) product elimination or substitution when a
126 reasonable alternative to using PFAS is available in the industrial process; (ii) accidental
127 discharge minimization; and (iii) equipment decontamination or replacement where PFAS
128 products have historically been used. These industrial permittees shall include those that use or
129 previously used PFAS or PFAS products or those where best management practices are
130 warranted based on the department’s review of discharge monitoring.
131 (c) The department of environmental protection shall include effluent limitations and
132 treatment requirements for PFAS in groundwater discharge permits upon renewal.
133 SECTION 3. The department of environmental protection shall promulgate regulations to
134 implement a schedule for phasing out the use, sale, or distribution, or offer for use, sale, or
135 distribution of sludge without the department’s site-specific approval in the commonwealth, and
136 shall not include the disposal or placement of sludge at a solid waste landfill, hazardous waste
137 landfill or sludge landfill. For the purposes of this section, “sludge” shall mean the solid, semi
138 solid, and liquid residue that results from a process of wastewater treatment or drinking water
139 treatment, and does not include grit, screening, or grease and oil removed at the headworks of a
140 wastewater or drinking water facility.
141 SECTION 4. Not later than December 31, 2028, the department of environmental
142 protection shall submit a report to the Chairs of the Joint Committee on Public Health and the
143 Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources regarding its progress in establishing
144 standards to monitor PFAS in ambient air. This report shall include, but not be limited to: (i) the
145 department’s capacity to establish these standards; (ii) the steps the department has taken or
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146 plans to take to establish these standards; and; (iii) a projected timeline detailing when the
147 department expects to finish establishing standards to monitor PFAS in ambient air.
148 SECTION 5. Chapter 21A of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after31
149 section 28 the following section:-
150 Section 29. (a) The department, in consultation with the department of public health,shall
151 develop and implement a multilingual public awareness campaign to promote the education of
152 Massachusetts residents, including environmental justice populations, of per- and
153 polyfluoroalkyl substances contamination across the commonwealth and potential health impacts
154 of PFAS exposure.. The campaign shall include the development and distribution of educational
155 materials, drafted in plain language to the extent possible, the content of which shall include, but
156 not be limited to: (i) the potential health impacts of PFAS exposure; (ii) the routes of PFAS
157 exposure, including but not limited to, drinking water, groundwater, surface water, wastewater,
158 land application of biosolids, landfills, air, and fish tissue; (iii) consumer products that are known
159 to contain PFAS; (iv) PFAS in Class B firefighting foam; (v) a list of facilities that are known
160 and potential sources of PFAS and are required to prepare a toxics use reduction plan for PFAS
161 within 10 miles of the environmental justice populations; (vi) assistance programs for PFAS
162 remediation; (vii) citizen involvement pursuant to G.L. c. 21I, § 18; and (viii) assistance
163 programs for PFAS remediation.
164 (b) The educational materials shall be translated into the native languages spoken by the
165 impacted environmental justice populations based on the federal census definition of English
166 isolation. Such educational materials shall be made available to, but not be limited to: (i)
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167 community centers; (ii) health care centers; (iii) schools, (iv) places of worship; (v) the
168 department of education; (vi) and the department of early education and care.
169 (c) The department may contract or associate with public and private agencies and
170 organizations for the preparation of said educational materials on PFAS exposure, other pertinent
171 resource information on the matter of PFAS contamination and conducting educational
172 programs. The department may use funds from the Fund, as established in section 35TTT of
173 chapter 10 of the general laws, for such contracts.
174 SECTION 6. Chapter 111 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after
175 section 5S the following sections:-
176 Section 5T. (a) As used in this section, the following words shall, unless the context
177 clearly requires otherwise, have the following meanings:-
178 “Agricultural products”, any vegetable, fruit, dairy, meat, fish,