Also on today’s menu:
Melanie Luce Faces Federal Embezzlement Charges
Arizona Supreme Court Decision Upholds 1864 Law
A new rule by the US Environmental Protection Agency immediately sets new limits on PFAS chemicals in public water systems, but gives utilities, towns, cities, and states time to prepare for remediation.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan was in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on April 10 to announce the new limits for five types of the toxic compounds that have been linked to health problems ranging from thyroid and liver disorders to reproductive and fetal development problems, immune system deficiencies, high cholesterol, and kidney, testicular, and other cancers.
The rules apply to PFOA, PFOS, GenX, PFNA, and PFHxS compounds. PFOA and PFOS are limited to no more than 4 parts per trillion in public water supplies (New Hampshire rules currently limit those chemicals to 12 parts per trillion) and those known as GenX chemicals — PFNA and PFHxS — to 10 parts per trillion (New Hampshire’s current limit is 11 parts per trillion for PFNA and 18 parts per trillion for PFHxS).
Discussion: New Hampshire is ahead of other states in requiring the testing of all public water utilities for PFAS concentrations, but remediation is expensive. The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services said the EPA rule would “double the number of sources of drinking water for public water systems and private wells” that exceed the new limits. The Biden administration is allocating $1 billion to assist utilities in meeting the legally enforceable standards, which often means expensive treatment system upgrades or securing alternative water supplies. Private well owners whose drinking water is contaminated also will be able to apply for the funds. Whether $1 billion will be sufficient to assist in meeting the standards is an open question. Between 6 and 10 percent of US water systems are suspected of having PFAS in their water supply.
Melanie Luce Faces Federal Embezzlement Charges
Melanie Luce, 46, who in 2012 was sentenced to 12 months in the Grafton County Department of Corrections jail and ordered to pay restoration for felony theft and misuse of a credit card that allowed her to steal about $185,000 from a Plymouth medical practice, will appear in US District Court in Concord in July on new charges alleging that she spent more than $30,000 on the Campton-based White Mountains Trail Collective’s credit card and PayPal account for personal expenses in 2021. She also is accused of fabricating a document purporting to show that she had obtained $475,000 in grants on behalf of the nonprofit, for which she received a $20,000 performance bonus.
Indictments handed up by a federal grand jury also include submitting false records to obtain a federal COVID-19 loan on behalf of her website development company, Prema Web Design, and attempting to defraud a local bank by more than doubling her company’s actual revenue on the loan application.
New Hampshire Public Radio reports that it is unclear whether the White Mountains Trail Collective’s board of directors was aware of her previous embezzlement or any steps it took to monitor her use of the group’s finances.
Discussion: NHPR obtained a copy of a 2022 audit by the New Hampshire Department of Justice showing that Luce allegedly fabricated bank statements to make it appear that the nonprofit had more money on hand than it actually did, by as much as $300,000, as it sought short-term loans. The White Mountains Trail Collective formally dissolved in 2023, and court paperwork indicates that Luce now resides in Colorado.
Arizona Supreme Court Decision Upholds 1864 Law
The Arizona Supreme Court has upheld an 1865 law, passed before Arizona even became a state, that creates a near-total ban on abortion. The 1973 US Supreme Court ruling in Roe v Wade, with its guarantee to the right of abortion, superseded Arizona’s law, but when that same court overturned its decision in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, the old Arizona law — which had never been repealed — again applies.
Arizona is an electoral battleground state since Joe Biden Jr. became the first Democrat in 24 years to win a victory in the state by a margin of about 10,000 votes. Republicans are facing a backlash over their position on abortion, and Biden sees the controversy as an opportunity to repeat his win in November 2024.
The Arizona court’s 4–2 decision recognizing the authority of the state legislature to write the state’s laws sent citizens scrambling to enact new legislation to reinstate abortion rights. Measures to legalize abortion “have passed in every state that has put them to a vote, including Republican-dominated states like Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio,” the BBC noted. A campaign is underway in Arizona to place a constitutional amendment on November’s ballot to protect abortion rights. It needs 383,923 verified signatures by July, but the campaign already has more than 500,000 signatures.
Discussion: The Arizona Supreme Court has been criticized for its decision, but it really had no choice in the matter. The old law is still on the books, so the justices could not simply ignore that. However, historian Heather Cox Richardson has explained that, “The laws for Arizona Territory, chaotic and still at war in 1864, appear to reflect the need to rein in a lawless population of men. The 1864 Arizona criminal code talks about ‘miscarriage’ in the context of other male misbehavior. It focuses at great length on dueling, for example…. And then, in the section that became the law now resurrected in Arizona, the law takes on the issue of poisoning. In … the context of punishing those who secretly administer poison to kill someone, it says that anyone who uses poison or instruments ‘with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child’ would face two to five years in jail, ‘Provided, that no physician shall be affected by the last clause of this section, who in the discharge of his professional duties deems it necessary to produce the miscarriage of any woman in order to save her life.’ The next section warns against cutting out tongues or eyes, slitting noses or lips, or ‘rendering … useless’ someone’s arm or leg.” Given that context, updating the law for the 21st century seems appropriate.