MassDEP labels W.T. fire station as PFAS source

By Eunki Seonwoo | My Times | January 26, 2023

Read the full article by Eunki Seonwoo (My Times)

"West Tisbury has been identified by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) as a “potentially responsible party” for the release of per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), according to town administrator Jennifer Rand.

At Wednesday’s West Tisbury select board meeting, Rand said the property at or near 551 Edgartown Road, where the West Tisbury Fire Station One is located, was identified as the possible epicenter of PFAS proliferation into nearby private drinking water wells.

A notice dated Tuesday, Jan. 24, from John Handrahan, chief of compliance and enforcement at MassDEP’s Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup, states the department’s residential well sampling program was conducted in partnership with the University of Massachusetts in April. During that testing, a private drinking well in West Tisbury was found to contain 102 nanograms per liter, or parts per trillion, of PFAS. This was well over the state’s PFAS concentration limit of 20 nanograms per liter and above the “imminent hazard” level of 90 nanograms per liter. The high levels of PFAS led to a MassDEP investigation for the chemical’s potential source. Further discovery showed another private well above the imminent hazard level, at 125 nanograms per liter, two properties above the state limit but below the imminent hazard level, and six other properties with PFAS levels above the “method reporting limits,” according to the notice, or the lowest amount of a chemical able to be detected in a sample."

Topics:

• ChemicalsPFAS
• SourcesFire departments
• Environment
• Wildlife
• Affected community
• Health
• Measurement Techniques
• Monitoring Data
• PFAS Uses