The loan will fund ion exchange and carbon filtration systems on four public drinking water wells with PFAS contamination under current environmental health advisory levels.
Warrington supervisors unanimously approved a $5.3 million PennVest loan funding filter installations on four public drinking water wells contaminated with perfluorinated compounds.
Effectively a drawdown loan, the township’s water and sewer department will install ion exchange and granular activated carbon filtration systems at the public wells currently testing under a 70 parts per trillion health advisory level for PFAS contamination set by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2016.
The township is currently purchasing all of its drinking water, approximately 1.7 million gallons per day, from North Wales Water Authority, which provides water with no detectable levels of PFAS.
Warrington, Warminster and Horsham have been dealing with drinking water contamination linked to the use of firefighting foams by the U.S. military at nearby former and active bases.
While the township will have to foot the bill for these filtration systems for the foreseeable future, township Director of Water and Sewer Christian Jones also received approval from supervisors Tuesday to apply for a state Department of Community and Economic Development grant that could fund about half the total PennVest loan.
Jones said the township is applying for the total $5.13 million dollars, but said during his presentation that the awarded amount would likely be closer to $3 million.
While the township is only two years into a 10-year purchase agreement with North Wales, adding the filtration systems could allow the township to reduce its daily water needs in the future.
Before the PFAS contamination issues, supervisor Vice Chairmain Fred Gaines said the township had purchased an estimated 700,000 gallons of water per day from North Wales.
Gaines added that, while the township will likely always have some reliance on North Wales, the PennVest loan and DCED grant were good investments for Warrington’s water system.

Paul Mohai, a professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, began studying environmental justice in the late 1980s, just a few years after the movement began.
"Given the magnitude of the disaster in Flint, the role that public officials’ decisions played that led to the poisoning of the city’s water, their slow pace at acknowledging and responding to the problem, and the fact that Flint is a city of almost 100,000 people indeed makes this the most egregious example of environmental injustice and racism in my over three decades of studying this issue."
They include serious shortcomings related to distributive justice, procedural justice, corrective justice and social justice.
The concentration and overrepresentation of poor people and people of color in a space that also suffers from environmental contamination is "a classic characteristic" of a community suffering from environmental injustice, Mohai wrote.
"Furthermore, that Flint residents’ concerns were dismissed and that the government was slow to respond, even when it finally acknowledged the problem, is also a classic pattern that communities suffering from environmental injustices face."
"Flint’s Emergency Managers were not elected by the community, were not accountable to the community, and did not live in the community.
… The lack of local representation, the ignoring of resident complaints, the discounting of the scientific evidence, the disrespectful treatment of the residents concerned about the water quality and health impacts are all evidence that the principle of procedural justice in Flint was violated."
Corrective justice.
Social justice.
"What stands out about the Flint Water Crisis … is the apparent indifference and lack of concern that harm might be created," Mohai wrote.

To ensure destruction of all harmful bacteria and other microbes, water for drinking, cooking and for making ice should be boiled and cooled.
Use bottled or boiled water for cooking, making ice, washing fruits and mixing soda water.
Give pets boiled or bottled water as well, St. David’s recommends, because they can get the same illnesses as we can get.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends these steps for during a boil water advisory: Do not serve or consume: water that has not been disinfected, ice or drinks made with water that has not been disinfected, or raw foods rinsed with water that has not been disinfected.
Discard ice made prior to the boil water advisory issuance and discontinue making ice.
For drinking water, use: commercially-bottled water and/or water that has been disinfected for Cryptosporidium by: boiling at a rolling boil for 1 minute (at altitudes greater than 6,562 feet, boil water for 3 minutes) distilling (water is boiled until it vaporizes and is then condensed back into water).
do not use chemicals such as bleach to disinfect your water Many water filters do not protect against water-borne illnesses.
Rinse hands well with running water – if running water is not available, water may be poured on the hands by another person.
Run cold water faucets continuously for at least 5 minutes.
Run coolers with direct water connections for 5 minutes.

The testing will determine if the dangerous chemicals in the ground are also in the air that the people living close to the contamination site breathe.
Over the last several months the state has connected 209 homes that were using the contaminated well water to the City of Haysville’s safe water.
The state says that was the first priority.
The announcement of air testing comes as a shock to already worried residents.
Since learning of the contamination, Kristy Fricker created this website as a way to compile health history for everyone who’s ever lived in or near the contaminated area.
Alice Kissack lives in one of homes in the contaminated area.
Kissack’s husband died of pancreatic cancer in 2017.
She says he used the contaminated well water for 16 years.
The residents think the connection between the bad water and cancer is obvious, and they want the state to look into it.
No one with the KDHE was available to answer their health concerns at Monday’s meeting, but Jurgen said the KDHE is investigating that aspect.

Oscoda Township will receive $1 million in two grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help homes that are using well water threatened by PFAS contamination to connect to the municipal drinking water system.
Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, announced the grants Monday, saying they’ll aid in cleaning up contamination near the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base by a potentially harmful class of fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS.
Oscoda will receive $750,000 in Water and Waste Disposal Loans and Grants and $250,000 in Emergency Community Water Assistance Grants.
"While I fought in Congress to get these funds for Oscoda to ensure drinking water for residents, the Air Force must do more to clean up the contamination that they caused."
The “do-not-eat” advisory for deer taken within five miles of Clark’s Marsh was issued by the Michigan departments of Natural Resources and Health and Humans Services, after one of 20 deer tested at 547 parts per billion for PFOS, a type of PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, chemical.
The test is almost double the action level of 300 ppb used when the state considers do-not-eat advisories for fish.
A do-not-eat fish advisory also remains in place for the area around Clark’s Marsh.
Kildee had introduced an amendment that passed Congress to double the size of USDA Rural Development’s Emergency Community Water Assistance Grants for communities with drinking water contamination.
Kildee urged the Pentagon and environmental regulators to address PFAS contamination more urgently.
mburke@detroitnews.com

The county has between 7,000 and 9,000 private wells, according to Carol Drury, the environmental health and laboratory manager at the La Crosse County Health Department.
The department warned 2,000 households last spring that their private wells could be contaminated with high levels of nitrates.
“We tested 540 wells during that time just from this particular area, the town of Holland and the town of Onalaska, and 30 percent of those tested at levels about the recommended levels of nitrates,” Drury said.
The county’s findings are high, said Mark Borchardt, a research microbiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“The national average across the U.S. is between 4 and 5 percent.
High nitrate levels have been linked to health troubles, Borchardt said.
“It looks like the evidence is pointing toward high nitrate levels being associated with colorectal cancer, central nervous system birth defects and thyroid disease.
So, it’s not something to be taken lightly,” he said.
Drury said preventing pollution is a long-term goal and that the department is committed to better informing the public.
So in the short term, we want to do what we can.”

LOGAN City Council has lifted a ban on drinking water put in place on Thursday after traces of the faecal bacteria E. coli was found in the water supply.
The ban, which applied to residents of Cedar Vale, Woodhill, Veresdale and Veresdale Scrub, was lifted at 12pm on Sunday.
Council handed out free bottled water in those affected areas on Friday.
Also on Friday, Logan Hospital restricted its water supply as a precaution after nearby works by the council.
On Sunday, residents were told to flush all water fixtures, including in-house drinking fountain units, for at least a minute.
All internal water service lines to holding tanks should also be flushed.
All ice-making machines should be thoroughly flushed and washed.
Council also recommended changing all water filters.
However, council said no changes were required to the hot water system if residents were operating to standard settings of 50-60C.
Anyone with concerns should contact a licensed plumber.

The Highlands Act was enacted in 2004 with a stated primary purpose of safeguarding the precious freshwater supply for millions of New Jersey residents.
The legislation governs the 800,000-acre Highlands Region, which "is a vital source of drinking water for more than half of New Jersey’s families," the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection says on its website, "yielding approximately 379 million gallons of water daily."
So it is extremely puzzling that the state DEP is not more concerned and responsive regarding possible contamination from a large-scale dirt dumping operation in Vernon, which lies within the Highlands Region.
Despite pleas from local, state and federal officials, the DEP is satisfied that, despite photographic proof to the contrary, the reported dumping that has been estimated at over 75 feet high has "de minimis (minimal) amounts of brick and block in the fill and possible traces of asphalt."
That assessment contradicts the observations of neighbors and several officials including U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who had requested the DEP "to consider the solid waste I have seen with my own eyes."
In August, Gottheimer urged the DEP to conduct core sampling and laboratory testing of the dirt pile on Silver Spruce Drive to make sure any runoff does not pose a risk to nearby wells and groundwater.
Earlier this month, results of an independent laboratory’s test of groundwater believed by a neighbor to be seeping from the site onto his own property and into nearby wetlands showed levels of lead more than 15 times greater than the limit allowed by the DEP.
If the sightings and photographs of metal piping, rebar, chunks of asphalt and concrete block are not enough to suggest that the fill is not as clean as the DEP would have us believe — the DEP went as far as to say it was "clear" (to them, at least) that the material was not construction or demolition wastes — then surely elevated levels of lead in runoff presumably from the site would spur the DEP into action.
Given the focus and intent on protecting the source of drinking water for more than 5.4 million people, it is prudent, even pressing, that the DEP conduct more extensive testing, not only of this site, but of other questionable dumping sites, before any or more contamination of the water occurs.
As Vernon Mayor Harry Shortway wrote in a letter to the editor published here where he implored the county and state for help in investigating and halting the suspected dangerous activity, "Stop it now or drink it later."

For many city residents the bottles are as empty as the promises of government officials who told them their water was safe to drink.
The river water was 19 times more acidic than the water from Detroit.
The lead problem, which local and state officials denied then downplayed for more than a year while Flint’s residents drank, bathed and cooked with the water, is also blamed for more than 300 miscarriages.
“My children’s lives have been changed forever because the government believed we have no right to clean water,” Ms. Wakes said.
A retest of her water a month later found lead at 397 parts per billion.
She said the state continued to erode public trust in April by declaring the water crisis over and ending free bottled water distribution, even as water service line replacement continued and residents were required to pay to let water run from their taps so anti-corrosion chemicals can recoat the inside of service lines.
“This crisis never should have started or gone on as long as it has,” said Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician in Flint and author of a book about the water crisis, “What the Eyes Don’t See; A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City.” “Uncovering the problem took a series of dominoes — first the moms, then journalists, and pastors and the scientists.” She leaves government officials out of that lineup, saying there’s been an “abandonment of our civic responsibility,” and residents of poor, minority neighborhoods have been disproportionately hurt.
And like Pittsburgh’s mills, Flint’s auto plants started withering in the last quarter of the 20th century.
In some neighborhoods, a lead service line replacement costs more than the value of the house it’s linking to the water system.
Tia Ivory, whose home in Flint had lead water levels above 775 parts per billion — more than 50 times the federal action level — before her water pipes were dug up and replaced, said the water crisis was a case of piling on to preexisting poverty-caused stresses and traumas.

City Manager Michael Hammond has reinstated a boil water notice for the City of Port St. Joe until further notice.
With reinstatement of the notice, all of Gulf County is now under a boil water notice.
Safe sources of drinking water include bottled, disinfected or both boiled and cooled water.
Use only safe drinking water.
Drink only commercially available bottled, boiled or disinfected water until your supply is tested and deemed safe.
Otherwise, water should be disinfected or both boiled and cooled before use.
Bringing water to a rolling boil for 1 minute will kill infectious organisms (germs).
Mix the solution and let it stand for 30 minutes.
Containers for water should be rinsed with a bleach solution of 1 tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water before reusing them.
Do not rely on unverified methods for decontaminating water.