Colo. under EPA probe
Perfluorinated chemicals, called PFCs, are creating angst and uncertainty along state’s urban Front Range.
As Environmental Protection Agency investigators turn their attention to Colorado and its perfluorinated chemicals that won’t go away, they face demands to determine how much of an infinitesimally tiny amount is too much.
At the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment — where state officials have begun making a list of sites where perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs, may have been spilled — agency chiefs say they will enforce any limit the EPA sets.
At a north metro Denver water supply plant, systems manager Kipp Scott focuses on 70 parts per trillion (ppt), a nonbinding health advisory target, as he dilutes and filters supplies for 50,000 residents following last month’s discovery that municipal wells are contaminated. “Our finished water now is around 27 ppt,” he said, “… after shutting off the wells.”
And in the contaminated Fountain Creek watershed south of Colorado Springs, residents
awaiting an EPA visit next week — on the fourth stop of a fivesite national tour — advocate a national limit of 1 ppt — at least until federal scientists can prove higher levels to be safe.
“It’s scary here now,” said retired elementary school teacher Jan King, 77, who’s been drinking the Fountain water all her life, as she awaits results of her recent blood and well tests, and worries about families with young children.
“You can’t go back and undo what’s already been done, but we need to fix what we can now,” King said. “Our soil is contaminated. Our water is contaminated. We don’t know how long it will be before that water is usable again. … Let’s find out what PFCs are doing to our bodies.”
This angst and uncertainty along Colorado’s urban Front Range reflects the rising concerns nationwide around a family of synthetic chemicals that have brought lifestyle benefits — firefighting foam that puts out fuel fires, nonstick cookware and dental floss, stainresistant carpet, superior fastfood packaging — but that now are understood to have a significant downside. Multiple studies have linked PFCs, even at very low levels, to health problems including high cholesterol, low birth weight, kidney and immunesystem ailments and testicular cancer.
The problem is that, because of a super strong carbonflourine molecular bond, these chemicals don’t break down. When PFCs enter soil, water and people, they stay for decades and build up.
They rank among the worst in a widening array of chemicals — including hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and antidepressants — showing up in the country’s public drinking water supplies. Yet the EPA’s process under the Safe Drinking Water Act takes years to declare a new chemical to be a hazardous substance and set an enforceable “maximum contaminant level” limit. (The last time the EPA did this was 2013 for E. coli.)
There is no regulatory limit despite revelations two years ago that PFCs had contaminated groundwater and more than 100 public drinking water systems in 33 states, mostly at sites near military air bases. Michigan leaders last week declared a state of emergency after tests confirmed PFCs have contaminated municipal water at up to 1,410 ppt in Parchment, near Kalamazoo.
Chemical companies have produced more than 3,000 types of PFCs (also called perfluorinated alkylates, or PFAS). EPA officials are considering a possible limit for only two types (PFOA and PFOS) as part of a national action plan they have promised to unveil this fall. Former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt held a summit, before his resignation amid corruption probes, and declared safe water a top priority.
EPA officials this week declined to discuss their emerging approach but, in emailed responses to emailed queries, acknowledged challenges the nation will face.
“Given the widespread nature of PFAS, the EPA is committed to supporting states, tribes and local communities in addressing the challenges,” agency spokeswoman Molly Block said.
“Once PFAS contamination is found, determining the extent of contamination and solutions if drinking water is impacted is also challenging, and each site is a little different. As more sites are found, more pressure is put on limited state and federal resources.”
In Colorado, PFCs contamination showed up most recently last month in South Adams County Water and Sanitation District wells that supplied raw water for 50,000 residents across 65 square miles of north metro Denver. The levels reached as high as 2,280 ppt — 32 times higher than the 70 ppt health advisory level.
Earlier this summer, Sugarloaf fire district officials west of Boulder revealed contamination of groundwater, likely from the use of firefighting foam containing PFCs, and alerted surrounding homeowners who rely on wells. Before that, municipal utility well tests revealed heavy contamination of groundwater near the U.S. Air Force’s Peterson Air Force Base east of Colorado Springs — threatening more than 65,000 residents who live in the area.
The full extent of PFCs contamination statewide is unknown. CDPHE officials do not routinely test groundwater.
“A final inventory of the facilities with high potential for PFC releases will be made available to the public,” CDPHE environmental programs director Martha Rudolph said this week in response to Denver Post queries.
“Preparing a statewide inventory will help us focus on those areas where PFC releases may be impacting groundwater that is used for drinking water,” Rudolph said. “An additional purpose of this effort is to help us understand the scope of PFAS issues across the state, to better inform our regulatory approach to PFAS moving forward.”
Some states have set or are considering statelevel regulatory limits — as low as 1 ppt in Vermont. Legislation in New York would ban PFCs. Colorado health officials have not set a statewide regulatory limit. The CDPHE set a limit of 70 ppt that applies only to the area south of Colorado Springs in southern El Paso County, including the cities of Security, Fountain and Widefield.
CDPHE officials “were hoping El Paso County was the end of it,” agency toxicologist Kristy Richardson said in a presentation last week to water professionals and scientists.
“We don’t have regulatory authority,” Richardson said. “We need regulatory authority. How can we compel cleanup if we don’t have the authority to compel cleanup?”
Colorado legislator Tony Exum Sr., DColorado Springs, a former fire department battalion chief who attended recent meetings with worried residents, said lawmakers should look into ordering a statewide limit.
“We definitely should take a look at it and not turn our heads the other way,” Exum said. “We’ve got to find out where these problems are coming from and make efforts to mitigate that. As state legislators, we want people to have clean, safe water. There need to be efforts by the federal government, state governments and local communities.”
It has reached the point that water utilities, such as the one in north metro Denver, and fire districts, such as Sugarloaf west of Boulder, test water voluntarily, separate from the testing required under a federal program for monitoring selections of unregulated contaminants — rather than wait on the EPA.
“This is a new type of contamination that’s been under the regulatory radar since the EPA was formed, and the EPA is just turning their attention to it. We should be expecting to see these perfluorinated chemicals in more and more locations,” said hydrologist David Lipson, a Denverbased director of the National Groundwater Association and president of the Colorado Emergency Management Society.
The NGWA of water professionals favors “a more proactive approach to monitoring the situation, which would include more sampling of groundwater for the purpose of establishing baseline monitoring levels so that any changes in groundwater quality can be detected as soon as possible,” Lipson said.
“Addressing PFAS in water resources is urgent because it appears to be a widespread public health issue with many unknowns. At this point we don’t know how big the problem is. New PFAS sites are being identified almost weekly.”
Colorado health leaders indicated they have not decided on whether to set a statewide PFCs regulatory limit.
“CDPHE supports EPA following the process in the Safe Drinking Water Act,” agency officials from multiple divisions said in a prepared response to Denver Post queries.
“If an MCL (federal maximum contaminant level limit) were developed, CDPHE would ensure that Colorado public drinking water systems comply with the regulation. CDPHE is not planning to replicate EPA’s efforts,” the officials said.
“The department’s current priority is understanding the potential impacts on drinking water sources from PFC releases. Once we have a better understanding of the potential extent of any contamination, we will evaluate the need for any statewide groundwater standards.”
Once PFCs reach water, they spread. They can be removed using carbon filters and other methods that researchers at the Colorado School of Mines and other universities are developing.
These can cost millions when installed at urban water utilities. Denver Water and Aurora Water officials this month said no significant PFCs have been detected in their water — which comes from diverted mountain streams rather than wells. South suburban Denver water utilities, which rely heavily on water from municipal wells, generally draw from deep aquifers hundreds of feet below the alluvial sediments where contaminants reached north metro watersupply wells in Adams County.
Then there’s the problem of people who absorb PFCs constantly putting more of the contaminants back into water that is conveyed by sewer systems to wastewater plants.
The nation’s wastewater plants mostly are not equipped to remove PFCs before treated water is discharged back into rivers, including the South Platte River that flows from metro Denver through northeastern Colorado to Nebraska.
“These chemicals are out there,” said Emily Remmel, regulatory affairs director for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies in Washington, D.C., which has submitted comments to the EPA urging aggressive action. The Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District has joined that effort.
“It is really concerning,” Remmel said, explaining that wastewater workers widely see themselves as stewards of public health devoted to protecting the environment.
“We’re urging the EPA to really look into more scientific research about the impacts of these chemicals and advise us on the public health risks,” she said.
“We would like the EPA to do more research — on all of the 3,000 chemicals — and develop an appropriate response that addresses the risks.”