SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — A likely carcinogen has been detected in 12 New Jersey water systems at rates above the state’s guidance level, according to a list compiled by the Department of Environmental Protection, and South Orange’s Well No. 17 is among those which — at one point or another, since testing started in 2007 — have carried an oversupply of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA.
Not much is known about PFOA, or what causes it to seep into water supplies at a higher rate than usual. State officials said it’s virtually impossible to know why the water in South Orange’s Meadowbrook Well was found to have 58 parts per trillion of PFOA in 2015, above the state’s guidance level of 40 ppt.
South Orange’s water is currently provided by the East Orange Water Commission, though that relationship will come to a close at the end of the year, when the contract expires and the village switches to New Jersey American Water. The decision to go with NJAW came long before the recent discovery of PFOA in South Orange’s water; not only has tetrachlorethylene been found in Well No. 17, but the EOWC has also been mired in corruption scandals.
Although residents are aware the village is switching to NJAW in January 2017, village officials are not just sitting back.
“The Village first learned of the PFOA issue in Well No. 17 a little more than a week ago when our village counsel was contacted by the NJDEP,” Village President Sheena Collum told the News-Record in an email. “Since that time, village trustees, working with our administration and professional staff, have devoted considerable time to investigating and educating ourselves on all aspects of this issue, including PFCs (perfluorinated chemicals) and specifically PFOA, their status as unregulated contaminants by the U.S. EPA and NJDEP, and the current recommended courses of action.”
Some factories and industrial plants release PFOA into the environment, but it can also be found in carpets, clothing and cookware; research on PFOA is relatively new.
“I don’t think we really know. It doesn’t necessarily mean factories, it could mean a small operation. It’s even found in fire retardants; it’s found in Teflon cookware. We don’t have a point source for these contaminants, in most cases. But we do know it’s at very small levels,” Larry Hajna, a press officer with the NJDEP, said in an interview. “There’s still a lot of evolving science as to how safe is safe, or what’s an appropriate level.”
PFOA is part of a family of perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs, which have been linked to cancer and developmental problems in humans.
But traces of the chemicals shouldn’t be particularly alarming, Hajna said. At the state’s guidance level of 40 ppt, it would take a long time — and some bad luck — for anyone to contract cancer from drinking the local water supply, according to the DEP’s latest findings on PFOA.
“We’re looking at these really small levels of chemicals, and assessing what health impacts would be like if somebody were to drink a certain amount of water over a lifetime, and if there would be an increase of a cancer risk, or other health risks, related to drinking that water over a lifetime,” Hajna said. “If somebody were to drink water with 100 ppt in PFOA, which is two-and-a-half times the DEP’s guidance level, over a period of 70 years, their cancer risk would increase by one in a million.”
Using those guideline, residents in a town like South Orange aren’t likely to see any health hazards from PFOA. In a municipality of 30,000 people, that means someone might contract cancer from the local water supply, on average, once every several thousand years, if the water they are drinking is well above the state’s standard rate of 40 ppt.
But while Well No. 17’s water is above 40 ppt, South Orange’s drinking water supply is not composed solely of water from the Meadowbrook well.
“In addition, we know that the Well No. 17 water, which represents only 10 percent of the total, is mixed in our system with the other 90 percent of water, which did not test positive for PFOA or PFCs,” Collum said. “The result of this blending is to dilute and reduce the actual amount of PFOA present in water delivered to consumers.”
New Jersey also has the strictest standard in the country for PFOA, more stringent than the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which has a guidance level of about 400 ppt. But the DEP doesn’t want to take any risks with how PFOA is handled in local water supplies, Hajna said, and is working with treatment plants across the state to reduce the traces of these chemicals in drinking water.
The topic of PFOA has gained national attention in recent years, in part due to a high-profile legal case involving the DuPont chemical company. In West Virginia, DuPont dumped 7,100 tons of “PFOA-laced sludge” straight into the ground, as the New York Times reported, contaminating the water supply of 100,000 people and causing mutations in local livestock.
PFOA has also been found in 27 states, including New Jersey, according to the New York Times report, and it is difficult to
eliminate, as the chemical does not biodegrade on its own. Even when PFOA is detected, utility companies are under no legal obligation to remove it, even in New Jersey, since the state’s guidance level isn’t enforceable or mandatory.
That’s why the DEP is trying to work with local water systems and limit the impact of PFOA, Hajna said. In the meantime, the DEP doesn’t recommend that residents start cooking with bottled water, or find any other substitutes: 100 ppt of PFOA, a rate higher than any water system in New Jersey, is still just a small trace of what people are getting in their drinking water.
“If you were to have the energy to walk to the moon, which is 240,000 miles depending on where you are on the Earth, it would be the equivalent of one foot on that journey. Or, it’s one drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool,” Hajna said. “We’re talking about really minute, trace amounts of this chemical.”
Although Hajna cautions that the PFOA levels are nothing to be overly worried about, Collum advises that concerned residents keep an eye on the news and use bottled water if it makes them feel more comfortable.
“We are working diligently to (i) evaluate all of our options with respect to the continued use of Well No. 17 water, (ii) evaluate our options to filter that water to remove the PFOA and (iii) arrange testing of the blended final water to determine the PFOA level in water that is delivered to consumers at various locations,” Collum said. “While the test result only violated the NJDEP long-term exposure guideline, the science on this subject is continuing to develop — as evidence by the EPA and DEP not yet regulating PFCs — and the village is simply not in a position to provide any ‘guarantee’ or certainty to consumers.
“We are in the process of creating a comprehensive page on our website devoted to this issue and we will be posting links to a variety of sources that residents are encouraged to review to educate themselves,” Collum continued. “That page will be the source for the latest and most complete information as our investigation continues. In the interim, any resident who remains concerned should consider using bottled water for drinking and cooking until such time as the EPA, DEP and the village are in a position to provide more definitive guidance.”
The 12 New Jersey water systems listed in the DEP report are the Atlantic City MUA, Brick Township MUA, Garfield Water Department, Greenwich Township Water Department, Montclair Water Bureau, New Jersey American’s Raritan System, New Jersey American’s Logan System, New Jersey American’s Pennsgrove System, Orange Water Dept., Paulsboro Water Department, Rahway Water Department and South Orange Water Department.
— Managing Editor Yael Katzwer contributed to this story.