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Dan Angove, Assistant General Manager, Newtown Artesian Water Company, gave an update on the quality of Newtown's drinking water at the August 8, 2018, Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting. He answered my questions about Maximum Contamination Levels (MCLs) of PFAS - perfluorinated compounds - in the town's drinking water.
Mr. Angove was invited to present his report after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hosted an all-day Community Engagement session in Horsham on July 25, 2018.
At that meeting, which I attended, Horsham, Warminster, and Upper Dublin township officials told the EPA that their residents should not have to pay to supply to their residents water uncontaminated with PFAS when the cause of the original contamination is known to be the U.S. military.
From what I heard at that meeting, there is a difference of opinion as to what the Maximum Contamination Level should be for these compounds. The U.S. EPA and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), for example, have recommended 70 ppt (parts per trillion) as the MCL for drinking water. The Newtown Artesian Water Company adheres to this recommendation.
Unlike Pennsylvania, however, the New Jersey DEP has not followed the EPA’s recommendation and set the MCL at 13-14 ppt. Other states as well have set lower limits.
Meanwhile, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) – a federal agency in the Centers for Disease Control - drafted limits on how much of several of the most common PFAS chemicals are safe for humans to consume that are MUCH lower – as much as 10X lower - than the limits set by the EPA. This would put the minimum within the single digits part per trillion.
At the EPA meeting, several local municipalities such as Upper Dublin and Horsham have indicated that they consider safe levels to be below 5 ppt. Hear their comments in videos from the EPA meeting here.
According to Mr. Angove's presentation, ALL the water Newtown Artesian Water purchases from sources like PA American Water and obtained from its own wells are below the 5 ppt detectable level; i.e., classified as “non-dectable.”
In preparation for Mr. Angove's comments before the Newtown BOS, I created the following chart to summarize current thinking on safe levels of PFAS in drinking water. The PA American Yardley data refers to one source in that company's water supply, which, according to Mr. Angove, is not purchased by Newtown Artesian.
In closing. Mr. Angove said that going forward his company will test for PFAS in all its water sources and report the results although it is not required by the PA DEP to do so.
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