More than 70 people gathered during a town hall meeting Thursday, April 25, at Parchment High School, to talk about the state’s response after so-called forever chemicals were found in the city of Parchment’s water supply.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, often called PFAS, were found in high levels in the Parchment water supply in July 2018, and an estimated 3,100 people using the water supply were told to stop drinking the water. One test showed total PFAS of 1,587 parts per trillion (ppt), which is 26 times higher than a federal health advisory of 70 ppt.

Sen. Sean McCann, D-Kalamazoo, hosted the town hall, and said it was so he and the others on the panel are available for questions from people who may be impacted.

“I know it’s an evolving topic, it’s a moving target in terms of safety and studies and how do we get to a point where we don’t want to unreasonably scare the population but we also don’t want to find out people are all going to get sick because they’re ingesting toxic chemicals,” he said, answering a question about how residents can navigate the complexities of the issue.

https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2019/04/pfas-response-in-parchment-discussed-at-town-hall-meeting.html