PFAS Water Treatment Study Moving Forward In Doylestown Borough

DOYLESTOWN BOROUGH, Pa. — The Doylestown Borough Council has directed its water
engineer to conduct a Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) treatment feasibility alternatives study of the borough’s drinking water at a cost of $20,000.

The borough is taking the preemptive action to prepare for what is expected to be an upgrade of the borough’s wells that would bring them into compliance with future federal standards. The future upgrade could cost the borough between $7.5 and $10 million in construction costs and add up to $250,000 to $300,000 a year in additional operating costs.

PFAS are widely used, long lasting chemicals, components of which break down very slowly over time, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Because of their widespread use and their persistence in the environment, many PFAS are found in the blood of people and animals all over the world and are present at low levels in a variety of food products and in the environment. PFAS are found in water, air, fish, and soil at locations across the nation and the globe.

For some time, trace amounts of the so called forever chemical have been present in the borough’s wells, but the amounts have been far below the federal health advisory of 70 parts per trillion and above.

“Our wells have been well below those numbers and haven’t come anywhere close to exceeding that existing federal health advisory,” reported borough manager John Davis.

Those standards, however, are in the process of changing both at the federal and at the state levels prompting the borough’s action on the study.

According to Davis, various states have alreay begun to move ahead of the EPA and establish their own MCLs (Maximum Contaminant Level), which will be actionable and a requirement as opposed to an advisory.

“The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania initiated a process to do so as well and that has been ongoing for several years now,” said Davis, noting that the Commonwealth is now nearing the end of its process and preparing to release the results and to establish for the first time an MCL for PFAS.

“In the meantime, several months ago, EPA somewhat surprisingly issued a statement that it was prepared to change its health advisory from 70 parts per trillion to essentially zero,” said Davis.

That announcement caught some folks off guard including the Commonwealth, which was prepared and will be issuing an MCL in the coming weeks and perhaps months that does exceed that, said Davis. “And that has motivated our action at this point,” he said.

“The borough has traces of PFOA and PFOS in its wells. Based on our latest testing we are expecting to be in compliance with the new state MCL. As far as the state is concerned the moment the standards are released all borough water will be in compliance,” said Davis.

But hovering over that, he said, is the EPA statement and the “obvious potential of EPA to act on that by creating its own MCL and for DEP and the Commonwealth to react as well by revisiting its standard and lowering it.”

Davis said the borough is close enough to the MCL that is going to be released by the Commonwealth and anticipating that the MCL will eventually be reduced “we feel it’s worthwhile to move forward immediately and to begin planning for a world where PFAS has a maximum containment level of near zero.”

The study approved by council will come up with recommendations on what treatments could be provided and what improvements would be needed to bring the PFAS levels down to zero in the borough’s wells on East Street, West Street, South Chubb, Sandy Ridge Drive and at the Water Works on East State Street.

“This is big,” said Davis. “It’s going to be an expensive process. It’s going to be quite an involved process from a construction standpoint,” said Davis. “All of our wells will need to be upgraded with some kind of treatment system if they are to have any kind of future. Those systems are expensive. Those systems take up space. They are fairly large. And we don’t have a lot of room in the areas of our well houses.

“We’re going to look at every option available,” said Davis. “There are three different types of treatment that are out there currently. Some are brand new and are still being evaluated by DEP. We are very much on the cusp of this treatment. The testing is getting better as we move forward
and is better able to identify these chemicals. So this is really a very fluid situation, but we have determined that we’re going to need to remove PFOA and PFOS from our public water in some fashion. And that we need to get started on this.

“The sooner we can do that the better position we will be to meet deadlines when they finally do emerge and the closer to the head of the line that we can get when grant funds are made available, which are going to be very critical as thousands of small water systems deal with this issue and this problem,” said Davis.

The current federal advisory is 70 parts per trillion. The proposed Pennsylvania MCL is going to be 14 parts per trillion on PFOA and 18 parts per trillion on PFOS, both vastly reduced from 70, but still significantly above zero, said Davis.

From a design standpoint and from a financial standpoint, to treat 14 and 18 is largely the same process to treat to zero, said Davis.

“We know where we are going to end up here so we might as well get started now,” he said.