HYANNIS — The first results are in from soil testing to determine if the Barnstable Municipal Airport contributed to contamination of two wellfields serving the Hyannis water system.
The chemicals are typically found in the types of firefighting foams that have been used in the past at the Barnstable County Fire and Rescue Training Academy and the airport.
In November, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection notified airport officials that the site had been identified as being potentially responsible for some of the contamination of the Hyannis water supply that had to date been attributed to the county training academy.
“This (report) is just a status to update DEP,” said Barnstable Public Works Director Daniel Santos.
“We don’t have a lot of analytical results yet, and when they are available is when we’ll be able to make some conclusions or recommend more study.
A lot of the work hasn’t been done yet.” According to the report, the soil samples were collected in December from three locations where firefighting foams had been used for training or during an aircraft incident.
Barnstable town officials have issued public health advisories for the Hyannis water system twice since 2015.
Last summer, the town of Barnstable filed a lawsuit against Barnstable County seeking several million dollars in compensation for cleanup of the Hyannis Water District’s Mary Dunn Wells near the county’s fire and rescue training academy.
The water contamination at the Maher wells is not part of the town’s lawsuit against the county.
— Follow Geoff Spillane on Twitter: @GSpillaneCCT