PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, MICH. (WZZM) – Amid growing concern about the safety of groundwater near an old Wolverine Worldwide dumpsite in Plainfield Township, there is differing ideas over what level of contamination should be a concern.
“I am saying any detection in the groundwater, in a person’s groundwater well for drinking, I would recommend at this time not to use it for drinking or cooking,’’ said Christina Bush, a toxicologist with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The federal government, however, is more forgiving.
Its health advisory level is set at 70 parts per trillion and does not make a distinction between private wells and municipal water.
Municipal supplies that test positive for low levels of PFAS are less of a concern, she said.
On Wednesday, Rockford Public Schools announced that well water at three of its elementary schools tested positive for trace amounts of PFAS.
Levels at Cannonsburg, Crestwood and Lakes elementary schools in Cannon Township ranged from 0.891 to 1.25 parts per trillion – well below the EPA advisory level.
But in trying to put it in perspective, everybody somewhere along the line has some of that in their body.’’ He says he will have water tested at the three elementary schools and at East Rockford Middle School each May.
“At this point, until we receive results on the well testing, we don’t know exactly how many homes that will be.’’ The township’s municipal water, which serves about 35,000 customers, has consistently tested positive for low levels of PFAS, Plainfield Township Public Works Director Rick Solle said.
Recent tests showed levels at 8.1 parts per trillion, he said.

ADAMS COUNTY, Colo. — A family discovered there are cancer-causing chemicals in their well water, yet they continue to fight state regulators who say nearby oil and gas activity is not to blame — including the abandoned oil well on the family’s property.
Several years afterward, they learned of the abandoned oil well from the 1970s somewhere on their property.
Gary Ohlson said no one told him about the oil well beforehand.
Still, the commission concluded in a letter to the family that "there is no evidence that the occurrence of benzene in your water well is due to oil & gas activity in your area or on your property."
The independent hydrogeologist acknowledged the same fact and petitioned the oil and gas commission last week — concluding that "past investigations by COGCC have been too limited and therefore unsuccessful" in ruling out oil and gas activity.
In an email to Denver7 Investigates, a spokesperson said, in part, "We respect the judgment of the COGCC and we will continue to work closely and cooperatively with them going forward."
Their frustrations ring especially true given that the commission told Denver7 Investigates that it "does not have plans to take further action" because it could never pinpoint "any potential sources of hydrocarbon contamination."
All told, COGCC said even if it had determined that oil and gas was a contributing factor in the contamination, it would have recommended that the Ohlson family install a water treatment system, which the family already had done long before the contamination came to light.
As such, the commission says the water tested in the family’s home is free of benzene.
However, the well water the family uses to irrigate their land and feed their farm animals is untreated — and may still contain benzene among other cancer-causing chemicals.

City workers monitor the height of the water in the wells on a weekly basis to be sure it isn’t dropping too fast or too far.
There have been days this summer in which that amount climbed to 2 million.
The wells’ water levels dropped about 12 feet from the beginning of May to the end of July, but they are still a comfortable 24 feet higher than the level at which water pumps might run dry.
The last time the water fell to that critical height was several years ago, at the end of a three-year drought, Krauel said.
About half of Carroll County is in a moderate drought right now, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
That’s slightly better than a couple of weeks ago, when most of the county was suffering from drought conditions.
In Carroll, May was wetter than normal.
The total effect of the dry conditions on the city’s water supply might not be seen for months, Krauel said, as the Dakota Sandstone aquifer — from which the city draws water — recharges.
“When we came out of the three-year drought three years ago, the Sandstone aquifer barely recharged at all.
Just a few feet,” Krauel said.

What’s in your well water could hurt you.
This was clear after Hurricane Irma.
About a quarter of private wells had at least one contaminant at a level of potential health concern, according to a rare large-scale 2009 study of private wells by U.S. Geological Survey.
Private wells use ground water that can also be polluted by runoff, fertilizers and pesticides, failed septic tanks, underground fuel tanks, and landfill seepage, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Just because it smells a little funny or looks a little funny doesn’t mean it has a lot of bad health effects.” The Florida health department “strongly recommends” private wells be tested for bacteria and nitrates at least once a year.
Lee health department also advises testing water for lead in homes built before 1986.
Health officials will pick up and test water samples for bacteria and nitrates for $115.
But there is no requirement for wells to be tested in Florida even when homes are sold.
For instance, Florida does not require pesticide-users to provide public information on applications.
California, in 1990, became the first state to require full reporting of agricultural pesticide use.

(CNN)Water drawn from wells at a hazardous waste site in hurricane-hit Puerto Rico meets federal drinking water standards and is fit for consumption, the US Environmental Protection Agency said in a news release on Tuesday.
The water being pulled from wells at the Dorado Groundwater Contamination Site, which is part of the Superfund program for hazardous waste cleanup, meets federal drinking water standards for certain industrial chemicals, as well as for bacteria, Elias Rodriguez, an EPA spokesman, told CNN.
"Sampling at the site has found chemical contamination that is impacting wells used to supply drinking water to the local communities," the agency said at the time.
To the surprise of some people at the EPA, Rodriguez said, some of the wells located on the Superfund site actually were collecting water from an aqueduct system that is not sourced from groundwater at the contaminated site.
The EPA did find between about 1 and 1.5 micrograms per liter of tetrachloroethylene, a chemical linked to risk of cancer, in water sampled from the Santa Rosa well.
More tests are forthcoming, Rodriguez said, but the test results released on Tuesday covered the chemicals of concern at the Superfund site, as well as bacteria that tend to cause illness following hurricanes and floods, he said.
On October 19, CNN published the results of those university water tests, which also found the water to meet safe drinking water standards for certain industrial chemicals.
"I would drink" the water based on those test results, Professor Marc Edwards said at the time.
The wells that do contain a mix of water from wells on the hazardous waste site are located away from an area that is thought to have more-problematic levels of chemical contamination, he said.
That distance is not especially comforting given the karst geology of the area, which allows contaminants to move more rapidly than through some other soil types, said Olson, from NRDC.

This map shows the number of wells on a county level that are likely contaminated with high levels of arsenic.
Many states keep tabs on arsenic in water wells, but normally in places where the chemical is already known to be a problem.
Rain patterns and how water flows through these rocks can release arsenic from their earthen homes and into a water well.
Ayotte’s team used USGS and other databases to compile arsenic measurements from 20,450 wells in the U.S. Map courtesy of Joseph Ayotte What they found: The USGS model, published in Environmental Science & Technology, predicts 2.1 million people drink from wells with arsenic at greater than 10 micrograms per liter of water, which is the maximum contaminant level allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Overall, 44.1 million in the conterminous U.S. rely on wells for their water.
States like Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts registered high levels of arsenic on the map.
“I wish I knew why U.S. domestic well water quality is not regulated to meet the same drinking water standards as for other types of water supplies,” said Zheng, who has conducted regional studies of arsenic in water wells in the U.S., China and Bangladesh, where she was formerly a water and sanitation specialist with UNICEF on arsenic mitigation projects.
Her research leads her to believe the most effective way to reduce arsenic exposure and protect human health is a national screening program in the form of individual tests at domestic wells.
It offers a sense of where arsenic might be, but people will not know for sure if their wells are contaminated unless they test.
Once detected, arsenic can be removed through common water filters, but even this simple technological fix might be cost prohibitive in rural areas where water wells dominate.

Nearly 60 percent of water samples from 50 private wells in Harris County tested positive for the bacteria commonly found in feces, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, according to preliminary data released Wednesday.
The presence of total coliform, the bacteria found in feces, soil and floodwater, was detected along with the more troubling E. coli.
Virginia Tech noted Wednesday that these samples contain a mix of flooded and non-flooded drinking water wells, as well as non-drinking wells, so the actual rate of contamination associated with flooding could be higher or lower than the preliminary numbers show.
The effort to inform Texans about the safety of their private water wells began in the weeks following Harvey, when Virginia Tech researcher Kelsey Pieper reached out to Texas A&M to offer assistance.
By the end of September, 630 residents from 23 counties had returned sampling kits to researchers for testing, most of which was done in Virginia, said Drew Gholson, AgriLife Service program specialist and network coordinator in College Station.
All individuals who’s water came back positive for contaminants already have been informed, he said, and given information about how to decontaminate them.
Virginia Tech researchers currently are gathering information from residents who submitted samples about how they receive information during flood events, Pieper said.
"We’re asking them what information they want and where they want it available."
In the coming weeks, Gholson said Texas A&M will take up the testing reins as another round of sampling kits are handed out.
He expects Texas researchers to hand out about 2,000 kits, he said, though they are still waiting on federal funding to cover costs.

Twenty-five rural water wells in Louisa County will be tested for any general contamination problems, Louisa County Supervisor Brad Quigley said Tuesday.
Quigley and Louisa County Public Health Service Assistant Administrator Heidi Pallister discussed the program during the board of supervisors regular weekly meeting.
According to Pallister, who spoke during a department heads session of the meeting, the county is planning to initially test 25 private wells under a state grant program.
She said the testing would include looking for neonicotinoids because of their possible link to honey bee colony collapses.
Quigley agreed with that idea and said he would stop at the local office with his request.
“I’m the only one who can do it and it takes a while,” she said.
In other discussions during the department heads session, Louisa County Engineer Larry Roehl reported he had agreed to join other Iowa county engineers in assisting the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) operations in Puerto Rico.
There will be no charge to the county, he told the board.
Louisa County Assessor Cathy Smith told the group that the Iowa Department of Revenue had ordered an 8 per cent equalization for commercial property in the county.
Later in the supervisors’ meeting, Louisa County General Assistance Director Cyndi Mears, Louisa County Mental Health and Disabilities Director Bobbie Wulf and Louisa County Sheriff Brad Turner provided their regular monthly reports.

PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Property owners who only have access to well water in the Rockford and Belmont area may be pleased to learn that Plainfield Township Public Services is looking to give them an apparent cleaner option.
“Until this issue came about, we hadn’t had any plans for extending water up in this area,” Solle said.
But for those who live in the expanded water testing area the DEQ announced Wednesday, Solle said municipal lines already exist in this area. So he said property owners still using well water could feasibly get hooked up to the township system fairly quick.
Solle said that remains to be seen.

In patches all over the US, an ancient layer of sediment in the Earth’s crust is rich in arsenic, a chemical element toxic to humans. And some 2 million people drawing water from private wells in the US may be getting exposed to it in levels above the legal limit, according to research published Wednesday (Oct 18) in Environmental Science & Technology.
Because they aren’t covered by the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act, private wells aren’t subject to the same government contamination tests that public water systems undergo.
Arsenic is a serious toxin. Recent research—like this paper that studied births in Ohio—found that babies of pregnant mothers who drank arsenic at levels below the federal standard were more likely to be born with a range of problems.
Arsenic is also a recognized carcinogen; Scientists at the US Environmental Protection Agency have concluded that if 100,000 women consumed the legal limit of arsenic each day, 730 of them eventually would get lung or bladder cancer, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
The EPA lowered the limit to 10 ppb from the previous 50 ppb limit in 2001—but the EPA initially proposed to lower it to 5 ppb.
Arsenic can’t be removed from water with chlorine, or by boiling.