The biggest concern was hexavalent chromium, which might cause cancer when found in drinking water.
Duke says the hexavalent chromium in the wells didn’t come from its stocks of coal ash stored at the plants.
But state legislators last year ordered Duke to offer alternate water to its neighbors.
But Duke plans to offer systems to filter contaminants out of well water to about 20 percent of the residents.
But, confusingly to Duke’s neighbors, the state has a separate “health goal” for hexavalent chromium.
The health goal is .07 ppb, 140 times more restrictive than the filter standard.
“While we appreciate other efforts the DEQ has taken to address the coal ash problems, we believe the newly-announced standards are far too lenient to Duke,” law firm founder Mona Lisa Wallace said in a statement Wednesday.
“They would allow Duke to install water filtration systems that could contaminate at levels far above what hook-ups to municipal water would provide.
We believe all Duke coal ash neighbors and their families are entitled to municipal water hook-ups and clean water.” WBTV this week reported on an internal memo in which two state health scientists also said the new filter standard wouldn’t adequately protect well owners.
The department said it would ask a state science panel whether the filter standard should be revised.

The wells had been tested before blasting began, but tests in March revealed that some wells contained water that was unsafe to cook with or drink.
“They came back and said our nitrate levels had gone up to the point that we couldn’t use our water anymore,” Mike Kerrigan said.
“It’s only inconvenient when you’re cooking,” Corey Kerrigan said.
The Department of Transportation said of the five wells with elevated nitrate levels on Tarbell Road, one showed high levels before the blasting began.
The Kerrigan family is still getting used to it.
You’ve got to get ice from the store.” Not all of the wells on Tarbell Road have been affected.
Tom Langlois, who lives next door to the Kerrigans, has not had problems with his well water.
What’s happening to my pool?
What is happening to my well?
What’s happening to the foundation you can’t see?’” Langlois said.

The wells had been tested before blasting began, but tests in March revealed that some wells contained water that was unsafe to cook with or drink.
“They came back and said our nitrate levels had gone up to the point that we couldn’t use our water anymore,” Mike Kerrigan said.
“It’s only inconvenient when you’re cooking,” Corey Kerrigan said.
The Department of Transportation said of the five wells with elevated nitrate levels on Tarbell Road, one showed high levels before the blasting began.
The Kerrigan family is still getting used to it.
You’ve got to get ice from the store.” Not all of the wells on Tarbell Road have been affected.
Tom Langlois, who lives next door to the Kerrigans, has not had problems with his well water.
What’s happening to my pool?
What is happening to my well?
What’s happening to the foundation you can’t see?’” Langlois said.

– Norma Garcia “The problem is that those people that live outside of the city and have their own well are usually the ones that have no idea what’s in their drinking water,” says Abigail Solis, a community development specialist with the Visalia non-profit Self-Help Enterprises.
Solis says many families think they can just boil water to get rid of the nitrates.
That’s why Solis and Self-Help started a program to offer free testing for nitrates.
"I think it’s always a good idea to know what you’re drinking, especially if you have children in the home."
– Nilsa Gonzalez, Tulare County “I didn’t hesitate to take the offer because I had heard talk about water in the area being contaminated,” says Garcia.
“When I got the call I immediately stopped using the water,” says Garcia.
“A private well owner does not get a permit from our division of drinking water, and they’re not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act,” says Karkoski.
– Tammie Weyker, Tulare County Tulare County does offer testing services to private well owners.
Of the 48 women who’ve taken Self-Help kits home, only 18 have actually returned them for testing.
“A lot of families come in here and they trust the WIC office and they know that the WIC office provides nutrients for their families,” Solis says.

Sunoco to replace private well water with public supply in Chester County.
Sunoco Pipeline agreed on Tuesday to pay for public water to be supplied to about 30 homes in Chester County’s West Whiteland Township where water from private wells turned cloudy after a Sunoco pipeline drilling operation for the Mariner East 2 hit a spring, a township official said.
Turner said the company had opted to convert the homes to public water because of an expectation that private well water would remain cloudy.
“It’s going to continue to give the people cloudy water and they are never going to be satisfied,” he said.
The company’s statement about the spring to the township came a week before it publicly acknowledged on July 3 that private well water had been contaminated, and began to supply affected residents with bottled water, extra filtration systems, and offers of local hotels in which to stay or bathe while domestic water supplies were disrupted.
“We were notified by Sunoco that they thought they had tapped into a spring,” Turner said.
“This particular drill is going in 3,000 feet, and they are not even a third of the way in when they start to see some water.” He said the township received its first complaints about cloudy water on July 3, and that Sunoco immediately responded.
“I called the Sunoco people on Monday, July 3, and within half an hour there was a team of about ten folks up there,” Turner said.
Initial test results from an independent water-testing company began to come in to the township on Tuesday, and unexpectedly showed that private well water was not contaminated with bentonite clay, also known as drilling mud, Turner said.
It’s just cloudy water,” he said.

View Gallery Shopping Cart icon Buy Photo Local officials in Chester County have asked Sunoco Pipeline LP to pay for the extension of municipal water service to an enclave of residents whose private wells were impaired last week by the company’s pipeline construction.
The West Whiteland Township Supervisors told residents in a post on the township’s website that it does not have jurisdictional authority over the contamination of water wells that occurred after Sunoco Pipeline began drilling in the area to install its Mariner East 2 pipeline.
Although most of the 350-mile-long pipeline is being built in a trench near the surface, Sunoco is using the horizontal drilling methods to install the pipeline through densely populated areas of Chester and Delaware Counties.
The technique involves drilling a bore through bedrock into which a coated-steel pipe is inserted and cemented into place.
State Sen. Andy Dinniman (D., Chester) suggested that Sunoco was in a rush to resume drilling before test results from the water wells were released.
“Were these tests able to determine if any lasting damage has been done to the aquifer and, if so, what efforts is Sunoco taking to mitigate this damage?” he wrote to company officials in an email on Monday.
Extension of public water service to the homes would be an expensive, permanent solution.
But one resident said he was not eager to pay a utility for water he now pumps from the ground for free.
“If I have to hook up to city water, they should have to pay my water bills for the rest of my life,” said Benjamin Eckert, 54, a Valleyview Drive homeowner.
Shields said drillers often penetrate aquifers without impairing neighboring water wells, adding that Sunoco suspended drilling as soon as residents complained.

Pipeline Drilling Creating Issues With Well Water In Chester County.
WEST WHITELAND, Pa. (CBS)–Some residents in Chester County are dealing with brown water flowing into their homes, and some have lost their well water completely.
They blame a pipeline Sunoco is digging beneath their properties.
“They should have contacted us two weeks ago when they knew they poked a hole in the well.” Mano said after neighbors began complaining earlier this week, Sunoco began offering bottled water and hotel rooms.
She said Sunoco is being encouraged to pay to hook up everyone to city water following this situation.
Some like Debbie Cindric, who spent a night in a hotel room, defended the company.
Mano is sending his well water out for private testing because he feels Sunoco is not being upfront about the situation.
A spokesman for Sunoco said in a statement that the company is investigating and testing local well water: “Sunoco Pipeline is working with a number of residents in the Exton (Chester County) area to resolve private water well water issues that appear to be related to nearby construction on the Mariner East 2 pipeline.
Approximately 12 households on Township Line Road and Valley View Drive, mostly in West Whiteland Township but also in Uwchlan Township, reported either losing water pressure or experiencing cloudy water beginning on Monday.
Crews have been working on a horizontal directional drill between West Whiteland and Uwchlan as part of the pipeline construction.

Buy Photo Sunoco Pipeline LP has suspended installation of its contentious Mariner East 2 underground pipeline near Exton after about a dozen Chester County households complained the water from their private wells was interrupted or had become cloudy.
The Newtown Square company put five families up in a local hotel Wednesday and provided bottled water to a dozen families near Township Line Road in West Whiteland and Uwchlan Townships, Sunoco spokesman Jeff Shields said.
“We have notified the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the townships, and all appropriate agencies, and will do everything in our power to minimize the impacts to homeowners,” Shields said.
The problems were first reported to authorities on Monday, he said.
The drilling involved the second of three pipelines through which Sunoco is delivering natural-gas liquids such as propane from the Western Pennsylvania shale fields to its terminal in Marcus Hook.
Political, business and labor leaders have touted the $2.5 billion Mariner East project as a major economic boost, but it has also generated fierce resistance from some nearby property owners and environmental activists opposed to fossil-fuel development.
Local officials suspect that nontoxic bentonite clay used as a lubricant during the horizontal-drilling process may have migrated into private wells.
Bentonite drilling mud is the same material used in cat litter.
Sunoco, in its February response to DEP, said it had worked with the public water supplier in the area, Aqua Pennsylvania, to step up groundwater-monitoring efforts, including the installation of a monitoring well near Aqua’s two Hillside water wells, which are about 300 feet from the pipeline route.
“We have not seen any impact on our wells,” she said Friday.

Drought conditions continue for thousands of rural residents in the San Joaquin valley who rely on groundwater.
The state is trying not to abandon people with dry wells.
Starting July 1, an additional year of free water will be delivered to massive tanks that were placed at many dwellings with dry wells, including the Rios’ home.
One year won’t be enough time to fix all the problems out there.
“And what will happen should any new homes run out of water during the next year?” asks Jenny Rempel, director of education and engagement for the nonprofit advocacy group Community Water Center.
“That’s not a good solution if you’ve been waiting for years already.” Herrera works with Tulare County residents, including those in Monson, where about 200 residents have never had access to a central water system – just private wells.
But Monson has been waiting since 2008 when contamination was found in private wells.
About 800 homes will be hooked up to water soon in East Porterville, where more than 7,000 people went dry a few years ago, Coyne says.
Even as millions of dollars are invested and the water comes back to many homes, residents know wells could go dry again if groundwater pumping ramps up.
A Sacramento Bee investigation found a record 2,500 wells were drilled in San Joaquin Valley in 2015 during the height of the drought.

Belmont residents still unable to drink tap water after coal ash spill.
BELMONT, N.C. – A sign was made because the area is on its 806th day of using bottled water, all because of a high-level toxic metal discovered in well-water.
Dozens of new homes are being built in his community.
Hundreds of people also drive by his house to get to Lake Wylie.
“I never had so many people stop in this yard and thank me,” Crawford said.
Duke Energy still claims coal ash basins aren’t impacting wells.
Crawford said he wants a solution, and to let people know the community is still left without one.
Duke Energy is being allowed to pass on the $55 million cost of cleaning up two polluted sites in Ohio to its customers.
The state supreme court said the Charlotte-based company can continue charging Ohio customers $1.67.
Right now, it doesn’t include Charlotte, but officials told Channel 9 they plan to ask for a rate hike in the Charlotte area, as well.