Superfund Site in Horsham Township
I moved to Horsham roughly 15 years ago. I was finally at a point in my career where I felt comfortable moving out of my condo and buying a single home. I did not want a townhouse or a McMansion, but was looking for a rancher with a small yard for my future vegetable garden. After an exhausting search that took nearly a year, I purchased a small rancher in Horsham. That Spring I had the dying oak tree in the back yard cut down and began the process of tilling and amending the sandy soil with fertilizer and organic material so it would be suitable for growing vegetables. I turned the new house into my home slowly over several years and couldn't imagine living anywhere else. Fast forward a few years and the recently decommissioned naval base that once held so much promise for redevelopment now was an albatross around my new home towns neck. Toxic "forever chemicals" were discovered in the soil and ground water. I literally was unsure if I hadn't inadvertently been poisoning myself by eating the produce from my garden. The Federal Goverment of course offered lip service as they were inconveniently the polluter. They held town hall meetings, but could offer no concrete evidence of what was safe and what wasn't. Frankly they made the promise work. Of course as citizens we wrote to our US Senators (1 Republican and 1 Democrat) and also our Congressman, but frankly nothing happened. If it had not been for the work of local officials declaring that the only acceptable level of forever chemicals in our water supply was non detectable and pressuring state officials to help out we would still be drinking poison. They drinking water supply is now safe, but the pollution is still here with no movement from the Federal Goverment. Horsham currently has a US Senator from each party and a Congressional Representative from each party and they do nothing. I ask the commission to consider this: Is there another community in PA that has a 900+ acre superfund site where the Federal goverment has polluted the land and the groundwater and has refused to remediate it? I don't think there is such another site. I plead with you please don't play politics with a community dealing with so much by splitting it up for partisan gain. Please keep Horsham Township whole for reappointment.