High Costs for Managing Toxic Contamination
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Government
Toxic Water Costs in the City of New Castle Public Water Wells Could Top $1 Million
Most suspicions in the New Castle cases have focused on long use of fire-fighting foams at the nearby Delaware Air National Guard Base at New Castle Airport. The foams contain long-lived perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), one of the Environmental Protection Agency's "emerging" health concerns for public drinking water supplies nationwide.
Artesian Water Co. shut down two commercial wells in the same area in June after detections of the same chemicals. An Artesian official said last week that PFCs also had been found in other local supply wells, although at levels lower than the Environmental Protection Agency's "guidance" limit for drinking water.
Around the country, more than 100 current or former Air Force fire training areas might have released PFCs of the type that led to the shutdown New Castle's 2,700-customer supply, according to a defense agency briefing document issued in November. Other military and civilian uses and ties to well pollution are under scrutiny nationwide, even as use of PFC-containing foams continue.
Costly activated carbon filter plants rank among the most-direct and reliable solution for PFC compounds like perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Both are in a class of chemicals used in a wide range of consumer and industrial products for non-stick, non-stain and film-forming features. All have been under study for more than a decade because of their tendency to accumulate and linger in living tissues and because of potential connections to cancer and other health problems.
Although no firm drinking water limits exist, the EPA in 2009 set a .40 parts per billion "guidance" level for PFOA in public supplies while the study continues, with a .20 parts per billion mark for PFOS.
Levels found in water source near Wilmington Manor were more than 11 times the EPA's guidance limit for PFOS. Results of well testing around the suspected source and New Castle Airport generally are expected later this month.
PFCs are so durable and their uses so widespread that they are believed present at low levels around the world and throughout global human and wildlife populations, including albatrosses and elephant seals in the Antarctic.
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