Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) are a name for many different but related, man-made chemicals. They are the byproduct of fire deterrents and nonstick and waterproof substances. They are referred to as the “forever chemical” by scientists because they don’t break down in the human body. They are a known carcinogenic and since 2015 have stopped being produced. In addition to cancer, PFAS have been linked to fertility, immune system and hormone issues. Through ingestion or inhalation, these chemicals gradually increase in bloodstreams, kidneys and liver.

PFAS have been used by manufacturers in consumer and industrial products since the 1950s.

Aqueous film forming foam, or AFFF, is a fire suppressant used to fight flammable liquid fires. It contains water and other chemicals, including ethylene and propylene glycol, used to extend the life of the foam. Firefighters use AFFF to put out fires that are difficult to fight with just water, especially those involving flammable liquids, such as petroleum. Firefighting training facilities and emergency vehicles, military facilities and ships and shore facilities are some of the places AFFF is used. Not surprisingly, toxic chemicals in some AFFF solutions are thought to increase the risk of serious health issues, such as cancer.

In Sept. 2019, New Hampshire’s legislature banned firefighting foams (SB 257) containing PFAS chemicals, as more and more evidence linked the popular fire suppressant to higher cancer rates among firefighters and drinking water contamination. However, there was no efficient or safe way to get rid of them, which meant fire departments in NH were still holding these banned chemicals in their fire stations.

Enter Revive Environmental out of Ohio. NH is now the first state to contract with Revive Environmental for its new “PFAS Annihilator” technology. Through this new contract, the state is expected to remove and dispose of 10,000 gallons of AFFF through a takeback program with municipal fire departments. 

This new technology will use high temperatures and pressure, breaking down the PFAS molecules into smaller and safer byproducts. Expected results are destroyed PFAS in contaminated wastewater, landfill leachate and AFFF. The state will then receive a “certificate of annihilation” from the company.

(Leachate: a product or solution formed by leaching, especially a solution containing contaminants picked up through the leaching of soil.)

The Dept. of Environmental Services (DES) has been working with the NH Fire Marshal’s Office and fire departments to bring about combined pickup sites in each county. From these locations, a waste management service called Heritage-Crystal Clean will bring the AFFF to Revive’s “PFAS Annihilator” mobile technology at a facility in Wyoming, Michigan. Funding for the state’s $668,258 contract with Revive will come from two DES funds, hazardous waste cleanup and emerging contaminants funds. 

Revive Environmental looks forward to NH being the first of other states they contract with as the federal PFAS limits are currently in the works by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

Way to go, New Hampshire, first in the nation again! This time to safely get rid of “forever chemicals.”

For more information on PFAS or to order a test for your household, click here:
PFAS Testing New Hampshire | PFAS in NH Water | NH Tap

As a grizzled and cynical member of Generation X, I’ve been surprisingly touched by the recent death of Sinéad O’Connor, who was one of the best of us.

I was never in the target demographic for her music, so I can’t say I listened to a whole lot of it, but I did love her voice. More than that, I appreciated her attitude.

I remember all the hubbub in 1992 after she ripped up that picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live. Desecration of images of authority figures is generally fine by me, although, not being a Catholic, I just mostly wondered what it was all about. 

I don’t recall the media at the time doing much to explain her position, choosing instead to vilify her and portraying her as a crazy person. It was the era before the internet, when there really weren’t a lot of voices to be heard beyond what corporate entertainment wanted you to hear. 

That was the same year Bill Clinton got mad accolades for attacking Sister Soulja. Marginalized voices were to be put in their place.

It wasn’t until years later that I read an article that went into depth about the abuse Sinéad O’Connor experienced growing up, including the outright theft of children from young mothers she witnessed during the time she was a resident of one of Ireland’s infamous Magdalene Laundries. She had a right to her anger.

Sinéad was blowing the whistle on church-sponsored child abuse and trafficking at a time when these horrors were only beginning to come into the public light. And she paid a heavy price for it, her songs virtually disappearing from radio play for years afterward.

These days, our discourse seems to be overrun by reactionary charlatans who falsely attack LGBTQ+ people and public schools as being supporters of grooming, indoctrination, and pedophilia, while conspicuously ignoring the mountains of documented evidence showing how conservative religious hierarchies have enabled these very same things.  

Alas, I don’t really expect Moms for Liberty, Ron DeSantis, or any of the various QAnon types and New Hampshire Republicans to have a whole lot to say in Sinéad O’Connor’s memory. 

Book banning has been going on for as far back as the ancient Greeks. Whether it was a ruler who didn’t want his peasants to be informed or religious groups who wanted their flock to listen to and obey only the spiritual leaders, book banning and book burning dates back centuries. A few examples: 
35 AD: Roman emperor Caligula opposed reading of The Odyssey by Homer, written more than 300 years before. He thought the poem dangerous as it expressed Greek ideas of freedom.
1559: For hundreds of years, the Roman Catholic Church listed books that were prohibited to its members; but in 1559, Pope Paul IV created the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. This was now the decisive list of books that Roman Catholics were told not to read. It was one of the most powerful censorship tools in the world.
1624: Martin Luther’s German translation of the Bible was burnt in Germany by order of the Pope.
1720: The Spanish Catholic Church put Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe on the Index Librorum.
1881: Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (published in 1833) was threatened with banning by Boston’s district attorney unless the book was expurgated. The public uproar brought more sales of his books that Whitman was able to buy a house with the proceeds.
(Expurgate: remove matter thought to be objectionable or unsuitable )
1925: Tennessee banned teaching the theory of evolution in schools; the law remained in force until 1967.
1959: The White Citizens’ Council protested The Rabbits’ Wedding, a picture book for children, getting it put on the reserve shelf in Alabama public libraries, as it was believed to encourage racial integration. 
1973: Drake, North Dakota school board, ordered the burning of 32 copies of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and 60 copies of James Dickey’s Deliverance for, respectively, the use of profanity and references to homosexuality.
1987: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou was removed from the required reading list for Wake County, North Carolina high school students due to a scene which the author, at the age of seven and a half, is raped.
2019: In the US, people demanded the removal of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale from public libraries. Complaints ranged from profanity to “vulgarity and sexual overtones” in the text, reported the American Library Association (ALA). The novel, published in 1985, depicts a future Christian theocracy in the southern half of North America. The ALA also reported that the novel was the 88th most frequently challenged book from 2000 to 2009 and the 37th most frequently challenged book from 1990 to 1999 in U.S. public libraries.

I wonder why. . .

Activist groups and conservative legislatures seem to be working overtime in getting laws passed around the country to ban all sorts of books that a vocal minority of people don’t like. Books about LGBTQ, people of color, Jews, Muslims, fiction, non-fiction. Poetry! Gone. Children’s books such as The Lorax by Dr. Suess and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein have been challenged in the past.

According to PEN America, the bans threaten "the future of American democracy, public education, and free expression." And here we are, in 2023, battling censorship again in the form of book bans! The ALA announced in March that efforts to censor books in schools and public libraries reached a 20-year high in 2022 - twice as many as 2021, the previous record.

“Regimes ban books, not democracies.” So said the governor of Illinois on June 12, 2023. Gov. JB Pritzker (D) signed legislation that would stop state funding for any Illinois library that tries to ban books. The new law will take effect on Jan. 1, 2024 and is the country’s first state law to prohibit the practice of banning books in public libraries. 

In order to receive that funding, Illinois libraries must accept the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights, which holds that "materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation," or adopt a similar pledge.

So far, in New Hampshire, the book banning craziness hasn’t reached epic levels. During the school year 2021-2022, six books were unsuccessfully challenged in Bedford School District. Perhaps New Hampshire could do something similar to what Illinois did before books become the next targets. 

After all, precedent HAS been set!

On Thursday evening the Keene City Council, of which I am a member, adopted, on a vote of 11-4, a plan to widen sidewalks, create bicycle/multi-modal transportation lanes, and expand greenspace in the downtown core of our city.

This is part of some renovations in our downtown infrastructure, made necessary by the need to replace the century-old pipes and storm drains that currently exist in the area. The vote that has just taken place designates the broad overall plan for how Main Street and Central Square are to be laid out once the digging is over.

It was always a questions of, how do we put back the surface infrastructure once all the pipes have been replaced? Do we put it back the way it was, reusing a downtown design that was drawn out in the 1980s, to meet the automobile-centric, suburbanization-focused development needs of that era? Or do we modernize the street layout to reflect 21st century values, like walkability, green development, and inclusive urbanism?

In the end, the Council went with a lot of Column A and some of Column B.

The option that was picked - something called the Multilane Hybrid Option - wasn't my first choice. It wasn't my second, third, forth, fifth, or sixth choice, either. 

It was my seventh choice. Don't ever say I'm not one who's able agree to a compromise.

In the end, while I would have preferred a plan with far more substantial changes to our traffic pattern and greenspace, the Multilane Hybrid Option was able to meet the concerns of a strong majority of City Councilors, all of whom have spent a whole lot of time considering the different points of view of a whole lot of people on this topic. That's why, in many ways, this plan reflects the point of view of people who wanted very little change at all.

However, the reason this plan has my support is because it does include protected travel lanes for bicycles and other non automobile-based forms of transportation. I also appreciate that this plan expands the amount of greenspace in Central Square by about 40%.

These new bike lanes - sorry "multi-modal transportation lanes" - are a huge win for green transportation in Keene.

Multi-modal means not just bikes, but scooters, skateboards, small electric vehicles of various types. These are affordable and environmentally-friendly means of getting around our community that will become increasingly attractive transportation options for all sorts of people, especially now that Keene has committed to creating the space in our downtown streetscape that protects riders from the dangers posed by automobile traffic.

Currently, Keene's bike and multi-modal transportation network has a lot of promise, but I could give you a list of significant gaps that are preventing it from being used to its full potential. This plan fills an important gap that goes along Main Street and around Central Square, where its illegal to ride a bike or scooter on the sidewalk and quite dangerous to ride it on the road. 

Based of this latest action of the City Council, the sidewalks in this area will now be expanded and will include an outside lane, where multi-modal traffic is separated from the danger of automobiles by a row of parked cars and from pedestrians through the judicious use of trees and shrubbery. 

This is a big win for Keene, and puts our downtown on a path to reach its full potential as the delightful, green, populous, and prosperous urban core of our broader Monadnock Region.

Apropos of nothing, here is a picture I took in Barcelona this past April.

No Labels originated in 2010, calling itself “a refuge for sensible centrists”, which motivated a caucus called “Problem Solvers” on Capitol Hill.

According to an article on Mother Jones, No Labels refuses to disclose the donors who are contributing to the possible prospect of a third-party presidential candidate for 2024. The organization claims to be bipartisan and while several wealthy donors have given money in the past for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, conservative candidates seem to be favored a little more. For the 2024 election, most contributors gave $5,600. The founder and CEO of No Labels, Nancy Jacobson, called it a “mixed pool of individual contributors including people that want to help our country.”

Well, if they want to help our country, what or who are they hiding?

No Labels hold conference calls regularly with Sen. Joe Manchin (D.-W.Va.) joining in one this past April. If we recall he was just here in Manchester this past week talking up the No Labels organization. During one of those fundraising conference calls in 2022 Jacobson talked of Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Az.) as possibly headlining their ticket.

According to a former Federal Election Commission (FEC) lawyer, Adav Noti, if No Labels is considering possible candidates during meetings with contributors, that could open the organization to legal inspection. “If they’re going around naming potential candidates and somebody donates in response to that, that clearly presents” legal concerns. Current case law says organizations supporting or opposing a “clearly identified candidate” may be regulated as political committees, Noti said.”

Now on to some of the No Labels donors . . . 

In 2021, an IRS filing disclosed longstanding GOP lobbyist Charlie Black, former associate general counsel of the FEC. Kenneth Gross whose specialty is campaign finance and counsels Fortune 500 corporations, and recurring donor John Catsimatidis who contributed more than $600,000 to the Trump Victory Committee around the 2020 election.

Harlan Crow, the billionaire who allegedly “bought” himself a Supreme Court justice with expensive trips and gifts, has been a megadonor while bringing in nearly two dozen other donors by 2021. Crow, who is a Republican stated, “I support No Labels because our government should be about what’s best for America, not what’s best for either political party. That’s also why I’ve supported candidates from both sides of the aisle who are willing to engage in civil discussions to move our country forward.” Having a Supreme Court justice as a “friend” is apparently what’s best for Harlan Crow, also.

Michael Smith, the billionaire founder of the enormous natural gas company Freeport LNG. Not too much of a stretch to figure out where his sentiments lie. He has supported Republican senators and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.). However, he has also donated smaller amounts to Democrats who are seen as moderate, Jon Tester (D-Mn.) and Manchin.

Speaking of Manchin, the Senator who drives around in a $90,000 Maserati Levante and occasionally charters his 65’, $250,000 yacht named “Almost Heaven”, coal country seems to have been very good to him. His daughter, Heather Bresch is the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Mylan, and she had donated the maximum allowed to the Mylan PAC ($5,000) during both the 2010 and 2012 elections. Her father received $10,000 in 2010 from Mylan. From 2007 to 2016, Mylan increased the price of EpiPens by 461 percent, from about $100 for a package of two pens to about $600. Remember that?

Iris Smith, wife of billionaire Michael, has donated to No Labels. More than $500,000 went to Joe Biden’s presidential victory fund, which splits the money between the Biden campaign and other Democratic groups. But weeks before she made this donation, she donated to the reelection campaigns for Sens. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Thom Tillis (R-NC). She has donated to Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ar). 

Another Republican donor is Tom McInerney, a private-equity investor, who regularly donates to the Republican National Committee and GOP-linked super-PACs.

Florida real-estate developer, Allan Keen, is a donor who in the past contributed to Trump. Additionally, he had supported the campaigns of the family Bush, father and two sons, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Recently he’s contributed to Manchin and Sinema.

Peter Resnick, an investor from Connecticut, gave No Labels Action, a super-PAC, $93,000 in 2018. He also supported the presidential campaigns of Obama and Biden, in addition to contributing to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) last year. 

Other donors: Thomas McLarty III, who was Pres. Bill Clinton’s first White House chief of staff.
Alfred Spector, a noted computer scientist who was once vice president of research at Google, then a top executive at Two Sigma Investments, a tech-oriented hedge fund.
Martha Ehmann Conte, a San Francisco-based investor and philanthropist who co-founded WomenRun, which identifies and supports “center-right Republican women to run for federal elected office”.
Dennis Blair, a former US director of national intelligence and a No Labels board member.

People with money. Part of the problem. Don’t be fooled by “No Labels”. Or “Americans for Prosperity” either. A Koch (billionaire) brothers super PAC. Although only one brother is left now . . .

A group called “No Labels” has now come into public view by the recent visit to New Hampshire by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman (R). But upon closer inspection, this group has been in quiet existence since at least 2019, if not before. Their “mission,” they claim, is to create a space for moderates on both the left and the right to come together and find solutions above partisan disputes. 

Sounds fair . . .

No Labels, is a “bipartisan” organization whose stated goal is to add a third-party candidate to the ballot in every state for next year’s presidential election. An initial town hall gathering was held on Monday, July 17, here in New Hampshire at St. Anselm College in Manchester. Both Huntsman and Manchin were the featured speakers. In what was presented as the “Common Sense” agenda, they spoke about climate change, gun violence, mental health issues and the nation’s debt along with the potential of a bipartisan third-party ticket. 

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.), stated the purpose of No Labels is to reunite political parties and people, to "stop the partisanship and incivility and refusal to compromise that divided our country and disabled our government" and to bring about new ideas.

No Labels wants candidates who can "declare their freedom from the anger and divisiveness that are ruining our politics and most importantly, our country."

Sounds fair . . .

Manchin feels political parties have moved either too far left and/or right. Both men feel the need for a third-party candidate. No Labels is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment but wants restrictions on semiautomatic rifles and universal background checks. The organization also wants stronger border regulations, while supporting citizenship for those who were brought to this country illegally as children. No Labels is looking to bring compromise to politics.

Okaaay . . .

That could explain a No Labels blended ticket of a moderate Democrat and a moderate Republican for president and vice-president. So, while they claim to be exploring the possibility of a third-party candidate, No Labels also claims to not being committed to it. Wait. What? 

According to founder and CEO Nancy Jacobson, the organization would put a halt to its presidential pursuits if their efforts are in effect helping Trump. In a recent interview with NBC News she insisted No Labels will go forward in its third-party attempts only if they feel they can win without wasting votes. (huh?) The organization will take another look at the candidates next April and will only jump in the race if it appears the voters don’t want either candidate from the Democrat and Republican parties. 

Not sure how they will be able to gauge that as polls have gotten more and more untrustworthy over the years.

Data for Progress, a left leaning think tank wrote, “It’s evident that even under the best of conditions, a moderate third-party candidate is highly unlikely to secure the vote share needed to win the White House, further underlying the nonviability of a No Label candidacy. With no feasible path to victory, such a campaign would only serve to split Independent voters, undermine Biden’s reelection campaign, and likely spoil the election in favor of Trump.”

No Labels has gathered $70 million in donations and is seeking ballot access in every state. They have been successful in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Utah. A national convention is being planned for next April in Dallas.

It's quite a ways off to the next election, but we need to be aware and informed. Stay tuned as my next article will be about who has donated to No Labels.

This past Saturday I was on the radio show, WKBK's "What's Happening with Mike Hoefer," together with fellow Keene City Councilor Mike Giacomo. We were talking about the ongoing debate surrounding Keene's downtown infrastructure project.

You can listen here.... might want to skip through the commercials.

Some people heard this and seem to think I'm against restaurants downtown. I'm not! I love restaurants. But restaurants are expensive - eating out is a luxury many can't afford - and there are only so many restaurants that a city the size of Keene can support. 

Walk around and take a look at how few of our vaunted outdoor dining spaces are in use at any given time, and consider that we may have already bumped up against the limits of consumer demand.

We need more than restaurants, we need a diverse set of businesses downtown. It wasn't long ago that we had a pharmacy, a bike shop, and a store selling menswear downtown, but those places are gone.

The one way that downtown can really prosper is by having lots of people who live and work there. And we can make that happen - there is plenty of space available in the downtown area for high-density residential build-outs. But we need the transportation infrastructure to support it, infrastructure that works on a human scale. A downtown built primarily for the convenience of automobile drivers isn't going to to get us there.

Looking out my windows today, I see more rain! And not just a light, summer soaking for the lawns and gardens, no! A constant deluge of pouring down bucketsful of water! So, in between running down to my basement and garage to check for incoming water, I sit in front of my computer to expound on the immediate need for climate action! Not just here in New Hampshire, but nationally, globally . . .

In 2009, the state developed a climate action plan, which influenced the state’s energy efficiency goals and performance for new buildings. The document was also influential for some legislation on climate and energy policy. Unfortunately, it was never updated or codified into law after being released. 

So now, for the first time in fourteen years, New Hampshire is creating a new climate action plan, all thanks to Pres. Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022.

This new law includes $5 billion for the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program. From that amount, $250 million is earmarked to help states, including local governments, territories and tribes, create or update current plans which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Then, an additional $4.6 billion will become available to assist in carrying out these plans. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), grants will most likely be awarded in July and August. Those who receive the grants will have a March 1, 2024 deadline to turn in their completed plans for consideration. 

Last month, the NH state budget was signed by Gov. Sununu. It included a $3 million federal grant which supports developing climate action plans nationally. Hopefully, this climate action plan will be updated as needed and put into place as soon as possible, as this current weather situation (abnormal rainfall and abnormal heat) is unsustainable for New Hampshire, the United States and the globe!

In 2021, Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) and 22 co-sponsors introduced House Resolution 541, “Expressing support for the recognition of July as ‘Muslim-American Heritage Month’ and celebrating the heritage and culture of Muslim Americans in the United States.” 

The resolution is an acknowledgment of the many accomplishments of Muslim-Americans in fields such as entrepreneurship to politics, from medicine to sports. The resolution identifies remarkable ethnic and racial diversity among a people who can trace their roots to nearly half the countries in the world, people who identify as Asian, Black, Latino and White. Nationally, there are just under 4.5 million Muslims. Worldwide? More than two billion.

The history of Muslims in the United States goes back 400+ years, including many Asian and Black Americans a part of their ethnic community. Did you know Muslim-Americans fought in every war since the American Revolution? 

Here in New Hampshire, there are approximately 1,172 Muslims according to World Population Review as of May, 2023. In Manchester is the state’s largest mosque, The Islamic Society of Greater Manchester, with other smaller mosques in Concord, Dover, Nashua and Windham. 

In 2020, Aboul Khan (R-Rockingham) was the first Muslim-American elected to the NH House of Representatives. He was re-elected last year for another two year term. 

This month, we salute the successes and diversity brought to our state and local communities by Muslim-Americans.

Governor Chris Sununu recently struck a blow in favor of childhood lead poisoning when he vetoed HB 342. 

The bill would have changed the health form that parents fill out when their child enters school or child-care to include the results of a blood lead test. Parents who do not get their kid this routine test would be provided with a brochure explaining the risk that lead exposure poses to their child’s developing brain, with the goal of encouraging them to get their child tested.

Such things have been effective in encouraging blood lead testing in other states. 

There are, of course, opportunities for parents to opt out of all this based on religious beliefs or whatever half-baked ideas they might have picked up listening to right-wing talk radio. It’s important to recognize that nobody is forcing parents to do anything here.

Although, let’s be clear: anyone who intentionally dodges lead testing for their child is being a reckless and neglectful parent - straight up. The impact of lead exposure on a child’s brain can be lifelong and debilitating, and all children deserve parents who will protect them from this danger.

Current law – signed by Gov. Sununu in 2018 – requires that kids aged one and two get tested for blood lead test. Compliance with that law isn’t great – in 2021, 40% of two-years-olds and 50% of one-year-olds did not get tested. In particular, a lot of testing was skipped during the pandemic years, meaning that a lot of children will soon be entering school who have never been tested at all.

But the Chris Sununu of 2023 wants to make sure that nothing is done about this. He called the bill an “unnecessary check on parents.”

Its interesting to me that Sununu would reach for the “parents rights” rhetoric here, a la Moms for Liberty and Ron DeSantis. It’s a dog whistle as loud as a tuba.

As a parent myself, I take particular exception to this rhetoric.

But for all their bluster about Critical Race Theory, panic about transgender people using the bathroom, and deep concern over woke library books, it’s funny how Republican leaders don’t give a fig about something that actually harms children.