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PUBLIC HEALTH PFCs detected near Rye's main water source Well tests show contamination exceeds EPA safety standards

Portsmouth Herald - 7/13/2017

RYE - Tests on a monitoring well at the old Grove Road landfill found levels of PFCs more than twice the Environmental Protection Agency's permanent health advisory level.

State Rep. Mindi Messmer, D-Rye, said the monitoring well where the high levels of PFCs were found is "less than 400 feet away" from the water district's biggest well.

"I'm very concerned about that. That's really close," Messmer said of the distance between the contaminated water found in the monitoring well and the water district's Garland well. "This has been a concern of mine for a long time. We know that PFCs don't biodegrade, so they're going to end up in the well at some point."

Messmer believes it's critically important that selectmen and water district officials begin "planning ahead" to protect the Garland well from the dangerous chemicals.

"It's the highest producing well in town," she said. "It supplies three-fifths of the water to the town."

A report by CMA Engineers stated there was a combined level of 151 parts per trillion of PFOS and PFOA found in one of the monitoring wells at the landfill. The EPA's permanent health advisory level is 70 ppt.

Portsmouth closed its Haven well at Pease International Tradeport in May 2014 after the Air Force found levels of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, 12.5 times higher than what was then the EPA's provisional health advisory.

The EPA classifies PFOS and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, as "contaminants of emerging concern." The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has stated health effects from PFC exposure are not yet clear. Early studies tentatively linked PFC exposure to health problems including cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, developmental delays, pregnancy induced hypertension and preeclampsia.

Messmer believes PFCs found in the monitoring well at the landfill came from the ash the facility took in from the former waste-to-energy facility at Pease Air Force Base.

"This is the first set of samples they've taken for PFCs" at the monitoring wells, Messmer said. "They have probably been there for a while, but that doesn't mean we know when they were mobilized. We don't know when the source was triggered."

Tests done on the Garland well this year have already found PFCs at 15 ppt, Messmer said.

"It's not going to go away. It's going to eventually end up there no matter what," Messmer said. "There is no subsurface barrier that will stop them from getting to the well and we know the concentrations in the Garland well have been going up."

She credited officials from the state Department of Environmental Services for their decision to test 15 private residential wells near the landfill.

"It shows how serious this is," Messmer said. "We need to evaluate very quickly if people are drinking water around that landfill that's contaminated."

Ken Aspen, superintendent of the Rye Water District, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Assistant Town Administrator Cynthia Gillespie said selectmen are "very concerned" about the levels of PFCs found in the monitoring well.

"They just want to make sure our residents are protected and we're on top of it," she said Wednesday.

Town officials are having the monitoring wells retested this week, she said, and those results should be in within about five weeks.

Messmer believes selectmen and water district officials have to begin planning now to treat the town well.

"We have to make sure they're looking out for our town's interests," she said. "The approach needs to be more proactive."