Drinking water systems at locations in three Vermont ski towns — Killington, Stowe and Fayston — have slightly elevated levels of PFAS compounds. State officials are awaiting a confirmation sample before ordering that system managers put out do not drink notices.
To date, just over a quarter of the 591 public drinking water supplies that are required to test for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, by Dec. 1 have done so, said Bryan Redmond, director of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s drinking water and groundwater protection division.
The three systems with elevated PFAS levels — Birch Hill Water System in Stowe, Killington Mountain School and Fiddlehead Condos in Fayston — serve a combined 230 people. The state’s interim drinking water standard is 20 parts per trillion for five PFAS compounds. Birch Hill Water System had PFAS levels of 33.1 parts per trillion — highest in this round of sampling.
“We haven’t had exceedances at larger, municipally served systems,” said Redmond.
Last session, lawmakers passed Act 21, which required managers of public drinking water supplies that serve more than 25 people for at least six months per year to test for PFAS compounds.
The state is working with managers of the three elevated drinking water supplies to complete another sample, said Redmond, who added that the suppliers have notified users of the initial elevated test results. If the average of the first and second PFAS samples are over 20 ppt, then the system has to issue “do not drink” notices and require treatment or a new drinking water source.
Results from the second round of testing should be available within a month due to lag time with labs, said Redmond. There are only a handful of labs in the country that perform the EPA analysis required by Vermont, which tests for 18 different PFAS compounds.
So far, 164 of the 590 public water systems required to do PFAS testing have done so and the state is urging the remaining system managers to complete sampling “as soon as possible.”
“I think it’s off to a little bit of a slow start,” said Redmond.
The Department of Environmental Conservation is in the process of finalizing drinking water standards for PFAS, with public hearings scheduled for next month.
PFAS do not break down in the environment and are used in a wide array of manufactured products, from rain jackets to cookware to firefighting foam. Scientists have linked certain PFAS chemicals to testicular cancer, kidney cancer, thyroid disease and immune system effects, among other medical conditions.
PFAS gained notoriety in Vermont in 2016 after the state discovered that a particularly toxic chemical in that group, PFOA, contaminated hundreds of wells in Bennington. The state also found PFAS contamination in drinking water near a former wire coating facility in Pownal, by the Rutland Southern Vermont Regional Airport in Clarendon, and at the Grafton Elementary School, among other sites.
Act 21 also required DEC to come up with a plan for widespread PFAS testing around the state, which it unveiled this summer.
