by Rhian Deutrom, originally posted on June 9, 2016

Defence contracted waste management provider Tox Free last year to engage its state-of-the-art “hazardous chemical” destruction machine, Plascon, which can effectively incinerate firefighting foam containing perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluoro­octanoic acid (PFOA).

Ministerial snub for toxic town

The manufactured chemicals are extremely persistent in the environment and cannot break down naturally.

There are two Plascon ­machines in the country that can destroy PFOS and PFOA chemicals – with one based on the Gold Coast – but Defence failed to disclose their knowledge of the machine to concerned residents, despite having used it twice in 10 years.

A Tox Free spokeswoman said the cost to destroy waste materials through Plascon ranges from $7.50-$75 per kilogram, depending on the contaminant and volume.

Documents obtained by The Courier-Mail reveal Tox Free was contracted by the ­Department of Defence last year to destroy a stockpile of firefighting foam in Narangba, north of Brisbane, and Laverton in Victoria.

“Plascon is especially useful for the destruction of concentrated organic halogenated compounds that other processes have difficulty in treating,” the document said.

When questioned, Defence Minister Marise Payne told The Courier-Mail the machine was “not readily transferable” to decontaminate large volumes of groundwater, but the department was investigating remediation options to treat Oakey’s water in the future.

Senator Payne said that a solidification technique was being trialled to introduce a host of additional chemicals into the town’s contaminated soil to “form a concrete like matrix and seek to trap PFOS and PFOA”. She also suggested ­­ex-situ stabilisation as a way to remove large volumes of contaminated soil and mix it with other chemicals to bind the toxins together, preventing further spread.

“And foam separation, which is where air is introduced into water to create foam that traps the PFOS and PFOA and the foam is scraped off and treated,” she said.

While the trials are in their early stages, Senator Payne said the Department would update the Oakey community on the trial’s outcomes.

When asked if the Minister would visit the town before the July 2 election, she said she would “make arrangements to visit Oakey in due course”.

Shine Lawyers partner Peter Shannon said Defence’s prior knowledge of the issues facing Oakey has deliberately put local’s livelihoods and health at risk.

“Defence failed to take ­action to remove the threat and compensate its people accordingly,” Mr Shannon said.

“People have pooled their life savings into their estates only to find out the land was saturated with hazardous materials, dangerous byproducts that should have been managed by our Defence.”

It is understood Shine Lawyers has received 60 inquiries and the firm is looking at preparing a class action.

“Oakey is in total limbo. Its residents’ land is now worthless, their businesses are worth almost nothing, their health is in question and the fear that their children have been exposed to these chemicals, is at times overwhelming,” Mr Shannon said.

“These are salt-of-the-earth citizens who’ve grown up working on the land for the wealth of this state and country. Their lives have been impacted irrevocably and the Defence has a duty of care to take every ­action to ease these burdens from a situation it created.’’

Long-term exposure risks still unknown, top medico warns

QUEENSLAND’S Chief Health Officer has admitted the health impacts of long-term exposure to PFOS and PFOA contamination are unknown and has called on Defence to address the health concerns of residents.

Dr Jeannette Young said evidence suggested there were no short-term health risks from exposure, but said “we just don’t know” what the impact was on people who were exposed to the toxic chemicals for decades on end.

“The evidence that is out there … that there aren’t short -term health risks, we don’t know what the long-term risks are. The most important thing to happen is just to reduce ­exposure of people to the chemicals because we don’t know what might be the long-term risks.”

In Oakey, toxic firefighting foam was in use from 1970 to 2008 and seeped into bore water that topped up water supply in the town.

“Expert advice suggests that the biggest risk for those chemicals is that they continue to accumulate in that environment and don’t break down. So you really don’t know, if you just continue to accumulate them, at what point do they ­become a risk, so you want to minimise exposure,” Dr Young said.

“There is no absolute work that shows the chemical, at the level that it’s been shown to be in people, causes any harm. It’s about the long-term unknowns. If you just allowed it to keep on accumulating, the levels in the environment would just get higher and higher and higher and we just don’t know if you’ve got ­humans being exposed from birth for 70 years to increasing levels – it’s unknown. ”

Dr Young said that she could understand community concern in Oakey and the ­residents deserved more ­information.

“I think it’s really important that we work with the community to give them the information.”

Residents of the Southern Downs town want blood tests to be funded by the Department of Defence – a request that’s been knocked back by the department.

State Health Minister Cameron Dick has committed to carry out the blood tests if the Defence Department will pay for them.

originally posted on April 14, 2016

Test results from near the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Facility in Merrimack revealed perfluorooctanoic acid (pfoas) levels below the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards.

Soil testing will be conducted next week within a one-mile radius of the plant, an area that encompasses schools and playgrounds.

Ground water has been tested, but only in wells created for the investigation.

State officials announced their plans to test private wells in a one-and-a-half-mile radius. This area includes parts of Merrimack, Bedford, Litchfield and Manchester.

The tests are being expanded after earlier tests revealed the plastics plant had been contaminating local water sources.

by Corey Rodda, originally posted on June 9, 2016

More than two dozen schools in Sacramento County may have unsafe drinking water flowing from their taps, according to a recent study.

That study, however, may be flawed.

by Alisha Roemeling, originally posted on June 9, 2016

EUGENE — Students at Roosevelt Middle School lined up during a five-minute break between classes Tuesday morning to fill paper cups with water from a 5-gallon tank of filtered water after all school drinking fountains were shut off Monday afternoon.

Roosevelt, in south Eugene, is one of three Eugene School District schools that have taken precautionary measures to ensure its students have access to filtered water dispensers and bottled water. The steps were taken after the district informed parents and students Monday night that some drinking fountains and sinks at the three schools, as well as one sink at the district’s administrative offices, had tested positive for elevated levels of lead.

The other two schools were Sheldon High and Kennedy Middle. The elevated level at Roosevelt was discovered Monday; the elevated levels at the other three district buildings were discovered in April. Plumbing fixtures were replaced at those three locales, and retesting found that lead content in the water was at safe levels, district officials said.

District leaders said they decided to be more proactive after learning about the April test results from facilities staff employees only last week.

Roosevelt Principal Chris Mitchell, made aware of the concerns Monday afternoon, said he immediately had all school drinking fountains shut off and went out to get some clean water around 1:30 p.m.

“I moved the staff water cooler into the hallway and went down the street to Haggen (grocery store) and got about 300 bottles of water,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell also delivered an intercom announcement to all Roosevelt students on Tuesday.

“I told them this (not using the fountains) is a precautionary measure,” Mitchell said. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of concern. I think the kids understand that we think they’ve been safe, and they’re comfortable with that.”

Lead levels

The standard for “safe” amounts of lead in the water is 15 parts per billion, or PPB. Anything above that number is considered to be elevated, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The highest level found in spot checks at Eugene district schools was 22.7 PPB at a water fountain at Sheldon High School.

By way of contrast, traces of lead at two Portland School District schools found in testing earlier this spring were as high as 52 PPB — more than three times the EPA’s “action level” of 15 PPB.

In Eugene, water fixtures that contained traces of lead, including sink and fountain fittings, were replaced at Kennedy and Sheldon almost immediately after district facilities employees received test results on April 14, district spokeswoman Kerry Delf said.

While district facilities workers made the necessary adjustments to alleviate the issue in April, Delf said they failed to adequately inform district leaders about the elevated levels until it was brought up in a meeting with Superintendent Gustavo Balderas late last week.

Balderas was copied on an earlier email, from a facilities staff member to another district employee, that referenced “pretty far down” in the email the discovery of traces of lead at the district schools. But that reference was missed by Balderas, Delf said.

Delf said the oversight was not intentional.

“There was no intent anywhere along the way to not properly communicate anything,” Delf said. “It just didn’t come to the awareness of the people who need to know until last week.”

Delf said the district is moving to establish proper ways for staff to communicate issues to other staff members and the public.

“We’re now establishing proper protocols,” Delf said. “The intention of all of this is to take the right steps and do the right thing for students and staff, and we need to have clear (steps) to adequately communicate with the public.”

Balderas said he wants to hold a community meeting for parents and others to address the matter further. No date has been set, but the meeting could happen as early as next week, he said.

School board response

Eugene School Board Chairwoman Anne Marie Levis said she learned about the issue in an email that Balderas sent to her on Friday.

“I think the district has done a really good job of keeping us informed and being proactive on this,” Levis said Tuesday. “It’s not widespread, it’s slightly elevated, it’s not in every school, and I think the district is taking all the right steps to test and make corrections and inform the public.”

Delf said communication about the traces of lead “did not happen as quickly as we would have liked, but it will in the future.” No disciplinary action has been taken against any employee in regard to the matter, she said.

Facilities employees tested about 230 water sites throughout the district in 1998, which is when Roosevelt, Kennedy, Sheldon and the district office were originally determined to have had elevated levels of lead in some water sources, Delf said.

The proper equipment was replaced at that time, but Delf said the district decided to retest the same sites this spring, following up on a request made by Balderas.

Delf said the district also was responding to community concerns following the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where much of the city’s water was found to be contaminated with dangerous levels of lead.

What students say

On their lunch break Tuesday, some Sheldon High students said they are concerned, not so much about the delay in learning about the elevated levels but rather that such levels could occur.

“We heard about it this morning from a teacher who told us not to drink from any of the fountains, just to be safe,” said 15-year-old Makena Buchholtz. “But I’m just going to bring (my own) water bottle.”

Ryan Poulter, 16, said the situation is especially frustrating because of the recent warm weather.

“This is like the worst time of year that this could happen,” Poulter said, “It’s so hot. I think it’s pretty concerning, and people are definitely talking about it.”

District officials said Monday that the four affected sites will receive bottled or filtered water until school is out for summer on June 16.

Janitors also are flushing out water sources at all schools in the district each morning, as water that remains in pipes and fixtures overnight are more susceptible to heightened traces of lead, Delf said.

During the summer, the district plans to hire an independent firm to undertake a comprehensive, districtwide testing for lead in the water supply, Delf said. All water faucets for drinking and food preparation will be tested, she said. The company, Eugene-based PBS Engineering + Environmental, will be paid about $25,000, she said.

The Springfield School District and the Bethel School District in west Eugene both aim to do the same in coming months.

The Bethel district “has already hired an independent professional environmental service to begin testing as soon as school is out for summer,” district spokesman Pat McGillivray said in an email.

“This will allow the professionals to access our water sources without interruption in order to ensure the most accurate testing,” McGillivray said. “Rather than random sampling, our tests will be conducted on all potential sources of drinking water in every building, leaving no room for doubt.”

In Springfield, district spokeswoman Jen McCulley said tests were conducted throughout the district in 2002 “and the levels were all well below the tolerated level.”

McCulley said parents, students and staff were notified Tuesday that the district plans to test all its sites again beginning the week of June 20.

Based on previous tests, the district does not believe there are elevated levels of lead in any of its water supply, McCulley said.

“We don’t have any locations we believe are problematic,” she said. But “we want to make sure that everyone has access to clean water.”

by Carlos Barria, originally posted on May 18, 2016

Water contamination continues in Flint, Michigan and San Diego.
Officials recently reported that the drinking water in Flint, Michigan is now finally in compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations in terms of foreign material in the water, such as lead and copper.
"In addition to replacing the old pipes, where a lot of the lead came out of, they have to watch the acidity and pH of the water because they switched water supplies.
It’s a combination of more vigilant monitoring plus replacing old, old infrastructure."
"It’s all about enforcing the monitoring," Dorsey said.
"And making sure you have enough people looking at the monitoring reports to pick up a problem.
The EPA has to be vigilant to make sure no problems are occurring.
According to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, 90 percent of the samples collected were well below the level of lead needed to declare a federal action.
"We will continue to work with our local, county and federal partners to maintain this trend.” Three schools in the San Ysidro school district also raised concerns about the levels of lead, copper and bacteria in public school water fountains after reports of blue-green water from pressure tests for plumbing leaks came from La Mirada.
"All households get a report from these districts and complying with strict EPA standards and the state.

by Chris McDaniel, originally posted on May 14, 2016

QUILCENE — The Jefferson County Public Utility District is working with the state Department of Health after lead contamination was found in the water of one Quilcene Water District customer’s home in 2014.

The contamination was found to be from the homeowner’s pipes and not the water district that serves 97 customers.

However, the PUD still must take action to ensure the pH balance of all water in the system remains at such a level as not to corrode the pipes further in this home, which would cause more lead to leach from it, said Derrick Dennis, Office of Drinking Water Quality section manager for the Department of Health.

The water itself — supplied from a single well located on the grounds of the National Forest Service ranger station in Quilcene — is not contaminated, said Barney Burke, Jefferson County PUD board member.

In 2014, the Quilcene system’s source met or exceeded all U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Washington state drinking water health standards, according to a Quilcene Water Quality Report released in 2015.

The state Department of Health requires public water systems to collect samples from residential customers and treat the water when more than 10 percent of samples exceed the action level of 0.015 parts per million.

According to the water quality report released by the PUD, lead was detected in the plumbing of several homes in Quilcene.

Dennis said water samples were collected at five homes on the system in 2014.

One contained lead above approved levels, he said.

The water in that home contained 0.056 parts per million (ppm) of lead, while the next highest sample contained 0.003 ppm, he said.

Subsequent readings “have been lower, and we are monitoring that,” said Burke.

“If they get below the action level for two six-month periods, they can go to a normal monitoring schedule of tap samples,” Dennis said.

Sampling

When a system is sampled, “they don’t sample every home on the system,” Dennis said.

“They are trying to target homes that would have the highest likelihood of lead in their water.

“Every house is different,” he added. “You may have remodeled your home, your home might be older [or] you might have nostalgic plumbing fixtures in your house because they look really cool, but they might have high-lead brass.”

When lead contamination is found, the state ensures water distributors “are doing what they need per regulations to make sure they are addressing the issue,” Dennis said.

That is the case here, with the PUD having informed water users on the system and taking action to address the issue, Burke said.

Adjusting pH balance

Although the source of lead contamination was the home’s plumbing and not the water source, the PUD is required to ensure that water is not too acidic.

“Water is a very powerful solvent,” Dennis said.

“If you took a non-galvanized nail and left it outside for a long time, and it rains, it is going to get rusty,” he said.

“It is interacting with the metal and breaking it down. It is the same thing that happens with the plumbing within your home.”

And while water distributors are “not responsible for what is going on in the home or the plumbing in the home, they are responsible for how the water they produce interacts with that plumbing, and that is where they need to control corrosion potential of their water,” Dennis said.

“The state has been working with water systems for a lot of years to help them get to a place where their water isn’t corrosive or acidic,” added Carolyn Cox, state Office of Drinking Water Quality public information officer.

Five at one time

Of the five sites found to have high levels of lead in Jefferson and Clallam counties between 2012 and 2015, only the one Quilcene home continues to test high, Dennis said.

“There is a total of 95 [public] systems in the two counties, and I looked at a three-year period from 2012 through 2015, and there have only been five systems that have exceeded the lead action level,” Dennis said.

The sites, he said, were Naval Magazine Indian Island, Quilcene and Moa Tel in Jefferson County, and the Elwha Place Homeowners Association and Palo Verde in Clallam County.

All but Quilcene are now in compliance.

Currently, “only the Quilcene system is still pursuing treatment,” Dennis said.

Preventive measures

While water distributors work to ensure their water maintains the proper pH balance, homeowners can take steps to reduce lead levels on their own.

One such step is to let water from the tap run for a few minutes to clear out the system, Dennis said.

“The longer that water sits within pipes in the home, the more it has the potential to leach lead and copper,” he said.

That is why, Cox added, “it is a good idea for people to let their tap run — particularly if they are in older housing — for a minute or two before they use it for drinking.”

And, Dennis said, drinking hot water from a tap is never a good idea.

“To reduce your lead exposure from water, be sure not to use hot water for drinking or cooking or baby formula because hot water tends to have more metals in it [and] would have a higher lead content” if lead were already present in the system, he said.

Homeowners also should regularly switch out the screens in their faucets, which may begin to build up with heavy metals, Cox said.

Residents also could replace plumbing lines and fixtures, she said.

Get tested

Concerned homeowners also can opt to get their water tested by an accredited laboratory, Dennis said.

“They would need to find a lab near them,” he said. “Contact them, and they will be able to help.”

by Hank Gross, originally posted on May 14, 2016

Saying that since Stewart Airport, specifically the Air National Guard Base, is “the most likely source” of contamination of the City of Newburgh’s water supply, Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney called on the Defense Department to investigate the situation.

Maloney said investigation must get to the bottom of the situation to protect Newburgh residents

“I’m less concerned with blame than with accountability and with fixing the problem, so the first thing we need to do is we need to identify the source of the contamination so we can stop it,” he said.

Maloney said it is known that PFOA and PFOS are hazardous substances; the question is what is the concentrate that is considered safe.

“We need to get the science right on that. That’s why the EPA has to get off the dime on this and tell us what is real and what is not,” he said

Then there is the bill to pay to remediate the problem.

“Somebody else is going to have to be responsible for what they’ve caused here when we know exactly what happened and by whom,” Maloney said. “The City of Newburgh is not the culpable party here.”

by Trishna Begam, originally posted on May 13, 2016

NISKAYUNA, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Officials say a water sample that showed lead contamination in a single school kitchen faucet has prompted the Niskayuna CSD to replace the fixture and conduct testing of water throughout the district.

The district received the results of two water samples taken at Glencliff Elementary School on Tuesday, May 10. Results for water that came from a drinking fountain at the school were well within normal ranges. However, the tests showed an elevated level of lead for the faucet in the school’s kitchen on the first draw, which means without letting the water run at all prior to taking the sample.

A subsequent sample on that same faucet contained levels that were well within acceptable limits as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency. The end of this press release contains more details about the Glencliff results and general information about lead in water.

The district says they took immediate action upon receiving the test results. All sources of water for cooking and drinking at Glencliff have been taken offline, and will remain that way until the district confirms that levels are within the EPA limit.

Following the replacement of the faucet, all water sources in the building will be tested by the end of this week, with results expected early next week. Until that time, bottled water will be available to all students for drinking and will be used for cooking. Hand washing is safe.

The district is also scheduling water testing at every school in the district to take place in the near future. This will be random sampling, with follow-up testing done in the event it’s needed. The heightened awareness on the issue of water quality in our state and across the country prompted some inquiries in our community, and the district initiated the testing at Glencliff.

The district sent a letter home with Glencliff students the other day: http://www.niskayunaschools.org/PDFs/ParentLetterWater-May112016.pdf

The letter notes that this is not a public water supply issue, as all public water supplies are subject to regular water quality testing. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, lead enters drinking water primarily as a result eroding materials containing lead in the water distribution system, including faucets, fittings and pipes. This is why the district’s immediate steps include replacing the kitchen faucet at Glencliff.

“There is nothing we take more seriously than the well-being of our students,” Superintendent Cosimo Tangorra, Jr., said. “We are taking the necessary steps to address this situation and confirm the quality of the water throughout the district. We will keep the community informed on this issue.”

New York lawmakers are considering a bill that would change water testing requirements. The bill will go through a lengthy committee process.

by Bruce Henderson, originally posted on May 13, 2016

The state epidemiologist questioned a decision to tell nearly 400 well owners near Duke Energy’s coal ash ponds that their water is safe to drink, a court filing shows.

Dr. Megan Davies said in a deposition taken and released by the Southern Environmental Law Center that she was “conflicted” over letters rescinding don’t-drink advisories issued nearly a year earlier. Davies, a physician trained in analyzing health patterns, said her boss also objected.

Duke says its ash isn’t the source of two contaminants found in neighboring wells, cancer-causing hexavalent chromium and vanadium, but the state has not confirmed that. Davies’ deposition was taken for state lawsuits against Duke over ash contamination.

Her sworn testimony shows that the conflicting advice given residents over the safety of their water reflects not only disagreements between health and environmental officials but within the health department itself.

That debate included the governor’s office, Davies said in the May 4 deposition.

Gov. Pat McCrory’s office intervened, she said, on the wording of warning letters sent to well owners in the spring of 2015. Duke, Davies said, later met twice last year with top state officials, including two department secretaries, to challenge the advisories.

The state abruptly reversed course in March, revoking the advisories and telling residents their water is safe. Many neighbors, distrustful of Duke and regulators, continue to use bottled water.

Danny Staley, director of the department’s Division of Public Health, also objected to revoking the advisories before it is known whether the contaminants came from coal ash, Davies said in her deposition. Neither could be reached Friday.

“We both felt it made more sense to wait on source determination, because once a source was determined, we would have a sense of if this – the hexavalent chromium was a contaminant versus naturally occurring,” she said. “That is relevant because if it were a contaminant, there might be ongoing contamination of wells with the increase in levels.”

Frank Holleman, the Southern Environmental Law Center attorney who deposed Davies, said Davies “thought that giving the do-drink advice was not consistent with the department’s mission of protecting public health and welfare. That’s a very serious thing.”

Dr. Randall Williams, the state health director who rescinded the advisories, is scheduled to also be deposed by the law center. So is state toxicologist Kenneth Rudo, who has publicly defended the advisories.

Kendra Gerlach, communications director for the Department of Health and Human Services, called it misleading for the law center to release the deposition, calling it “partial information.”

“The water in these wells meets the standards of the Safe Drinking Water Act,” she said in a statement. “Allowing the affected residents to return to drinking their water is within federal and state guidelines and is consistent with safe drinking water practices across the country.”

Duke has previously criticized the state’s health advice to residents.

“We have long been advocating for clarity for plant neighbors on well safety and had appropriate conversations with regulators to ask many of the same questions that neighbors have been,” spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said. “We also provided scientific data to both agencies as part of the process to sort all of this out.”

Test standards questioned

Most of the wells tested showed hexavalent chromium and vanadium above screening levels the state established.

Davies said those levels were calculated as state law requires – the point at which drinking contaminated water for a lifetime would cause no more than one additional cancer in 1 million people.

Williams, the health director, and Duke have said the screening levels were too low compared to standards used elsewhere.

The health department says the well water near Duke’s plants meets federal drinking water standards. Davies said Josh Ellis, McCrory’s communications director, wanted that noted in health advisories sent to well owners. Ellis did not respond to a request for comment.

The well water meets federal standards because none exist for hexavalent chromium and vanadium. A standard for total chromium is intended to reflect its hexavalent form. The Environmental Protection Agency is studying whether to set a separate hexavalent chromium standard.

Advocates challenge state officials’ assertions that municipal water systems show similar levels of the contaminants.

Catawba Riverkeeper Sam Perkins, who works for a foundation the law center represents, compiled data showing that average levels of hexavalent chromium in private wells near two Duke plants, Allen in Gaston County and Buck in Rowan County, were at least 20 times higher than the averages of 11 public systems including Charlotte’s.

Duke says it is not surprising that groundwater would show higher levels of contaminants than treated municipal water that is drawn from rivers and lakes.

Few other private wells across the state have been tested for hexavalent chromium and vanadium, so there is little data to compare, it said. State tests also found the contaminants in groundwater not assumed to be affected by coal ash.