The amount of PFOS found in Woodstock’s water supply is less than the new EPA standard of four parts per trillion, the equivalent of four drops in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, Vincent Martello, director of community-health relations for the Ulster County health department, told a Woodstock forum last week on concerns about PFOS.
That Woodstock number pales in comparison to the public-health crisis in High Falls, whose aquifer has been contaminated by volatile organic compounds produced by a small machine shop which has been pouring degreasing solvents down its drains.
“So you can imagine that the community was pretty concerned and not knowing where to turn for help. But we eventually came together as a community to confront it,” Martello said.
He told the audience the High Falls situation was the worst-case scenario of pollution, almost as bad as Love Canal. On a scale of one to ten, it was about a 12, whereas Woodstock’s concerns were around a one, he said.
Timothy Rose, acting county public-health director, said the levels in question were so minute that sensitive equipment was required to detect it.
“We had an instance where we had some hits of PFOS in a water supply,” said Rose. “And I really didn’t think it was a real hit. I really thought it was either a lab error, or it was it was a sampling error or something. We went back we tested we had a hit again …. This just doesn’t seem right. There’s something that is just not making sense to me as an engineer.”
He asked his staff to conduct the next sample outside the building, and it came back fine. The pollution came from foam spray in the building from insulation work of which the agency had been unaware.
Many precautions have to be taken when sampling. For instance, when testing petroleum, a lab technician can’t fill his vehicle gas tank because the fumes were still on his hands a day later, causing a false positive.
Rose was happy to hear Woodstock was going to continue quarterly sampling. If results show below-detectable levels for several tests, the town can move to only testing every three years.
Rose responded to criticism the town didn’t notify residents about the sudden change in PFOS levels. There was no violation because the limits were not exceeded, he said.
Should the town government have notified the public? “That’s up to you to decide,” he said.
Paige Bogart, an environmental analyst for the state health department, is working with Woodstock to identify possible sources of drinking-water contamination. She said it was up to the general public to be more cognizant of what they are pouring down the drain.
“So it’s important to be pro-active, and I think that’s what’s really great about our program,” she said. “Instead of installing a water treatment plant, we really want to prevent the contamination from happening in the first place.”
Questions that audience members submitted on cards were answered by the panelists.
Councilmember Anula Courtis, who organized the panel, said no questions about how the contaminated fill in Shady could work its way into the water supply would be answered. She said that subject would be addressed at a future town hall-style forum.
A hydrogeologist who had been scheduled to be on the panel could not attend, so those types of questions could not be answered.
Supervisor Bill McKenna answered questions about a backup water source should the situation become more serious. He said the town had emergency access to Cooper Lake, the City of Kingston’s water supply. When the PFOS issue first came up, his first call had been to Kingston’s water department.
Bogart said PFOS was prevalent in a number of sources. “PFOS comes from everywhere, in our food packaging, and even our makeup and chemicals we clean our floors with. So, finding source of PFOS is a really difficult process,” she said.
“The thing about PFOS is that the point source can be in a thousand places,” Martello added. “Wherever there’s a well and a septic system, the PFOS can be entering the groundwater.”
What was the benefit of testing individual town wells if they were all in the same aquifer? Rose responded that where it was coming from could be isolated. He also speculated that one of the Woodstock wells was new and that the problem could be coming from something in the new well pump, as McKenna has speculated.
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