PFAS Drinking Water Limits Criticized By Horsham Township

HORSHAM TOWNSHIP, PA —Township officials wonder why the drinking water of Pennsylvania residents has to have "forever chemicals" in it.

It's not that way any longer in Horsham Township and it shouldn't be that way in the state either, Township Manager Bill Walker said.

"No one in Horsham is drinking public water with those chemicals. We have the most advanced, state-of-the-art filters," Walker said. The township has dealt with PFAS chemicals from the former Willow Grove Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base.

Walker was reacting to regulations recently adopted by Pennsylvania to protect the state's drinking water from PFAS chemicals —or "forever chemicals" —by setting new limits on two forms of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

The new rule sets maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) in drinking water for two forms of PFAS – perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) – in order to protect the public from potential adverse health effects linked to exposure to PFOA and PFOS.

“Since Governor Tom Wolf signed an executive order in 2018, DEP has been committed to protecting Pennsylvanians from the adverse impacts of PFAS. We are still learning more about these chemicals, and these new MCLs are a step in the right direction,” said DEP Acting Secretary Ramez Ziadeh.

Last June, the Defense Department released a report saying that concerning levels of PFAS have been found in drinking water supplies near military bases, which included the Horsham Township base.

In Horsham, local residents were warned about the problems linked to PFAS in the community back in 2016, when the federal government first admitted that public well water in the area had exceeded acceptable levels of PFAS contaminants.

A study was launched over the summer to examine Montgomery and Bucks County residents who may have been exposed over the years to PFAS, which are believed to have been used in products such as firefighting foams that are often used at military bases.

Those communities included: Horsham, Abington, Upper Dublin, Hatboro, and Upper Moreland in Montgomery County and Ivyland, Warminster, Warrington, Northampton, Upper Southampton, and Warwick in Bucks County.

"We're way ahead of the bureaucracy and the red tape that's involved in bigger government," Walker said. "It's a shame that people across the Commonwealth are drinking these chemicals."

Walker said Horsham Township wrote letters to the state campaigning for water limits to be set lower but never heard a word back.

The state's new rule sets an MCL of 14 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and an MCL of 18 ppt for PFOS.

Walker said, though, that the state could have set levels at 5 parts per trillion, which is what Horsham did in 2017 before going to below 2 parts per trillion in 2019.

"It's very disappointing when bigger governments —like the state and feds —cannot do what a small little municipality did."

The chemicals are known to build up in people's bodies and in the environment. PFAS have been associated with adverse health effects but are classified by scientists as emerging contaminants because the risks they pose to human health and the environment are not completely understood.

The MCLs are intended to protect against adverse developmental effects (including neurobehavioral and skeletal effects), and adverse immune system effects (including immune suppression). The rule also specifies requirements to ensure compliance with the MCLs, including monitoring and reporting, analytical requirements, and approved treatment technologies.

PFAS are a class of synthetic chemicals used since the 1940s to make water-, heat-, and stain-resistant products such as cookware, carpets, clothing, furniture fabrics, paper packaging for food, and other resistant materials.

Former State Rep. Todd Stephens worked on the PFAS issue for many years.

He said that Horsham has been a leader for years in adopting a non-detect PFAS standard (the highest in the country) for its public drinking water system. Stephens had previously stated that neighboring Warminster and Warrington townships followed suit after Horsham.

"The government should have been more aggressive," Stephens told Patch Thursday. "The non-detect goal for drinking water systems is what the standards ought to be."

Stephens said the Military Installation Remediation and Infrastructure Authority in Horsham Township provides grants to local water suppliers — Horsham Water and Sewer, North Wales Water Authority, Warminster Municipal Authority — in helping to connect private well owners to clean, safe public drinking water systems so anyone in those communities affected by PFAS can get help from local water providers.

"We call it the Horsham standard," he said.

Patch Writer Jeff Werner contributed to this story.