Media

Military Sites

Legislative & Government

Meetings

Strategies

• Organizing and convening public presentations, programs, and rallies in Winooski, Burlington, and South Burlington. We hope to hold these programs outside in the late spring or early summer, practicing social distancing and requiring mask wearing.  We are also prepared to hold zoom programs as well.  We’d like one program to be a rally along the Winooski River, inviting the press to hear the latest PFAS contamination results from the river water.  

• Educating the public on the VT military use of AFFF foam (past and present), its contamination of our water and ecosystems, and its toxic effects on health.    

• Creating a series of well-researched educational handouts, including an inventory of Vermont military base contamination, records of land and water testing on or near bases with the types/levels of contamination, data for on-base or adjacent community disease clusters (if available), and status of legislative and other actions being taken in VT as well as possible or proposed legislation for Vermont.

• Writing and adding Vermont pages to Pat Elder’s website—www.militarypoisons.org.  Pat’s website is excellent, but needs to be reorganized to make it more navigable for Vermonters.

• Mobilizing the public and impacted communities to demand the lowest maximum contaminant level (MCL) for PFASs, in particular PFOA/PFOS.   

• Advocating that the EWG list of actions in “Communities have a right to know” be supported.   

• Testing sample ground water, rivers, and streams near VT military bases for PFAS contamination (i.e., citizen science) and publicizing the results to the community.

Timelines and Tasks

The project will begin in January of 2021 and will culminate in activities in the late spring and early summer, depending on when we have secured sufficient funding to move forward. We will do the following:

• With the help of a hired Project Coordinator, we will expand Vermont’s team, reach out and involve more affected individuals, build leadership skills in members and groups, and continue team meetings to solidify plans to meet all program goals.

• A team volunteer will gather and write the Vermont information to be posted on a redesigned and reformatted website. Vermont will have its own set of pages to include VT PFAS military contamination sites, state legislation (enacted and proposed), how to get involved in Vermont, resources, activities/events, and more. A professional website developer will be hired  to reformat/design the website.

• Expert Pat Elder of Military Poisons, will work with us to research, write, and finalize educational materials for distribution. 

• Develop media, print and on-line/radio, and social media campaign; contact environmental, investigative, and health journalists.

• Arrange venue and speakers for events/activities in Vermont, focusing on outreach to those affected by PFAS contamination. Include two out-of-state (Pat Elder of Military Poisons and Patricia Hynes of the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice) and two VT speakers (TBD).  

• Contact and meet with state-elected representatives and agencies with responsibility for water quality regulation and public health to learn status of regulation and action and to discuss “Communities Have the Right to Know.”

• Launch media campaign to coincide with forums, rallies, and programs.

• Collect data on media coverage, attendance at presentations, etc.

• Compile final report on this VT project for funder(s).

• At the end of the VT project, the team will determine next steps in the pursuit of legislation and state laws.  We hope to have grown our numbers of activists substantially by the end of the year and to determine next steps in our project, sharing results with others who may be interested in or participating in similar PFAS and the military projects.