The article “7 LI water districts exceed limit” News, May 12] is misleading and could leave readers with fear, and it damages trust in public water.

Labeling sample results as “exceedances” for regulations that do not come into effect now until 2031 is unfair, as is taking results from 2023 and putting them up against a rule established in 2024. Both give the impression that water providers are incompetent or uncaring, neither of which is true. Water providers have been consumed with the design, construction, and operation of new treatment facilities for PFAS compounds, aka “forever chemicals.”

In 2020, New York State took a major step forward in regulating PFAS compounds, establishing Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) for the two most-studied chemicals, PFOA and PFOS. This has put Long Island’s water providers ahead of other states in establishing new needed treatment systems. New York’s regulations still gave water providers years to comply because of the time needed to construct treatment systems. The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule and its process are no different.

In less than five years, we went from no PFAS regulations to some of the strictest in the country, then to an even-stricter nationwide MCL. As regulatory goalposts move, it is irresponsible to call out and shame individual water providers by putting them on a public list, especially since they are following all current regulations.

The writer chairs the Long Island Water Conference.

Some tests of drinking water in Suffolk County have detected more than four times the federal limit of PFAS, which pose myriad health risks. I’m alarmed.

Gov. Kathy Hochul should support two pieces of legislation in Albany that address PFAS contamination. One bill would ban PFAS from most household items sold in New York. The other would place a five-year moratorium on the use of biosolids as fertilizer. Biosolids are left after water treatment plants get finished with processing sewage. Full of nutrients, they are used as fertilizer for farm fields, on which our food is grown.

The problem is that PFAS chemicals cannot be effectively removed from biosolids, so they cannot be removed from the soil either, and from there they get into our aquifers. The moratorium would allow time to study how best to solve those problems.

Will national limits on PFAS survive the Trump administration’s attack on environmental regulations? Given the EPA announcement Wednesday about delaying the water standards, apparently not.

Would EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin even enforce them? I am not optimistic. Long Islanders need the adults in the room in Albany to protect our health.

While the concern expressed in the editorial opposing the use of a Qatar 747 as Air Force One are timely and accurate, it missed a significant issue: The plane may be a Trojan horse. It may be packed with surveillance devices, tracking systems, the ability to override flight controls or, in a worst-case scenario, a remotely operated self-destruct system [“Plane deal is plainly wrong,” Opinion, May 13].

Turning such an aircraft into Air Force One is a lengthy and expensive operation, possibly more expensive than the price of the bare airframe. Communications, security, and self-defense systems must be designed, manufactured, and installed, usually by a contractor other than Boeing at a facility other than a Boeing factory under close supervision by the Air Force, Secret Service and National Security Agency.

In the case of the Qatar airplane, there would be the additional expense of stripping it to a bare airframe, searching for anything that might pose a threat, and then installing all the items unique to Air Force One.

Sen. Rand Paul says President Donald Trump shouldn’t accept the $400 million jet to be gifted by Qatar [“Schumer wants answers on Qatar gift plane,” Nation & World, May 14]. “I don’t think it looks good or smells good,” Paul said. The deal is possibly a bribe. The dollar amount of the present would be a record for any president. Qatar has been widely regarded as a state sponsor of global jihadist terrorism and a host to Hamas.

Trump’s family has grown rich from Mideast business dealings. Yet Trump has repeatedly and erroneously accused Hunter Biden of selling other countries access to the “head of the Biden crime family,” former President Joe Biden.

Lately, however, we haven’t heard a peep about that. Trump is too busy possibly abrogating the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause.

I agree with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in petitioning U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Trump or his businesses could benefit.

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