[T]est results from an additional 50 private wells in Bennington showed almost half exceeded the state’s advisory health limit for the suspected carcinogen known as PFOA, Gov. Peter Shumlin’s office announced Thursday.
Also, monitoring wells surrounding the Bennington Landfill revealed contamination exceeding the state’s advisory health limit of 20 parts per trillion.
The contamination is suspected to have originated from the former Chemfab factory in North Bennington, plus two other sites believed to have been contaminated by factories established by the same Vermont entrepreneur. Documents released by the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation show that as early as 1985 Chemfab executives told state regulators their company might leave the state over air pollution controls required at the factory by state statute.
Other sites in the country have become contaminated by PFOA emitted from factory smokestacks, although it has been dispersed into communities through other routes as well.
The latest results come a day after the Shumlin administration announced it would test water near 11 other factories and facilities around the state where officials have surmised the chemical may once have been in use.
As of Thursday, 126 North Bennington water supplies have been found to be contaminated with PFOA at levels exceeding the state’s advisory maximum. Twenty others came back with detectable levels below 20 parts per trillion. A total of 232 water supplies have been tested in North Bennington.
Test results released Thursday showed private wells with PFOA concentrations of up to 471 parts per trillion. Results from the landfill showed concentrations of up to 140 parts per trillion.
Officials say Chemfab could have legally disposed of the chemical at the landfill, since PFOA has not been regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The results released Thursday led the DEC to expand its effort to include an additional 150 private wells in hopes of finding the extent of the chemical’s spread.
How exactly the chemical found its way into drinking water wells is still unknown, said Environmental Conservation Commissioner Alyssa Schuren. Answering this question is a top priority for department staffers, she said.
“From these (upcoming) results, and from the monitoring wells around the landfill, and from tests at the (Chemfab) site, those coupled with soil samples we’re going to get back should give us information to come up with some more solid theories” as to how the chemical was dispersed, Schuren said.
The department will take further samples around the Bennington Landfill and south of the landfill to Route 9 between the airport and Old Bennington, Schuren said. The department will take samples outside previous testing areas as well, along Corey Lane, Whipstock Road, Airport Road, Route 7A and near Cold Spring Road in the Shaftsbury area.
Officials have asked residents in the expanded sampling area to sign up for testing of residential wells at anr.state.vt.us/dec/PFOA.htm. Residents whose wells are being tested can pick up free bottled water at the North Bennington Variety Store at 49 Route 67 West in North Bennington.
The department will hold a community meeting in Bennington April 18 at 6 p.m. in the Greenwall Auditorium of Bennington College’s Visual & Performing Arts Center.
The chemical perfluorooctanoic acid has been linked to several types of cancer, along with other serious ailments.
It was used in the manufacture of Teflon products until manufacturers phased it out by 2015, and research has also shown that Teflon heated beyond around 500 degrees will release PFOA.
One of the chemical’s largest historical consumers, the chemical giant DuPont, has faced thousands of suits alleging it polluted water supplies with PFOA, resulting in cancers and other illnesses. It has settled suits related to improper PFOA disposal for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Many of these suits depended on evidence that DuPont scientists knew PFOA posed serious risks to human health as early as the 1950s and concealed that fact.
The former North Bennington Chemfab plant is one of three Vermont factories associated with PFOA pollution, all of them once owned by the same entrepreneur, who made Teflon-coated products. The other two sites are in Bennington and Pownal.
A company called Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics bought Chemfab in 2000. In 2002 Saint-Gobain closed the North Bennington plant and moved its operations to New Hampshire. Company officials said at the time that their decision to move was spurred by Vermont’s air quality regulations, which New Hampshire did not have.
In a recent letter to Vermont regulators dated March 21, Saint-Gobain’s director of environment, health and safety, Edward Canning, disputed that “PFOA is a hazardous material, pollutant, contaminant or waste within the meaning of any currently applicable federal or Vermont state statute.”
Even if that were the case, Schuren said, companies aren’t allowed to cause harm through chemicals they release. If the pollution is definitively tied to Saint-Gobain, she said, the company will be held responsible.
