The Boston Globe - 13.09.2019

A10 Nation/Region The Boston Globe FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

gesting that the toxic chemicals
may be far more prevalent in
drinking water than has been
understood.
“I would hazard a guess that
virtually every town in Massa-
chusetts has detectable levels,
some of them higher than this,”
said Kyla Bennett, a former sci-
entist at the US Environmental
Protection Agency who now
serves as director of Public Em-
ployees for Environmental Re-
sponsibility in New England, an
advocacy group.
Concerns about PFAS, often
called “forever chemicals” be-
cause they never fully degrade,
have mounted in recent years,
and regulators are beginning to
take action. Developed in the
1940s, the chemicals have been
used in products such as flame
retardants, nonstick pans, pizza
boxes, clothing, and furniture.
Water at the two public
schools, which draw from their
own wells, contained concen-
trations of the chemicals below
current federal and state guide-
lines but above forthcoming
regulations, which are based on
more recent assessments of
their risk.
In a letter to the community,
Brooke Clenchy, the district’s
superintendent, said the
schools were turning off the
drinking water and bringing in
bottled water “out of an abun-
dance of caution.”
“Where we see opportunities
to be proactive, rather than re-
active, to a situation, we make
every effort to do so,” she wrote.
The letter did not mention the
health risks of exposure.
The findings confirmed tests
the district had conducted ear-
lier in the summer, after envi-
ronmental officials urged pub-
lic water systems throughout
the state to test their water for
PFAS. Only larger water sys-
tems, those serving more than
10,000 people, are required by
the federal government to test
for the chemicals.
More than half of the state’s
municipalities have not had

uWATER
Continued from Page A

their drinking water tested for

the chemicals, according to da-

ta from the state Department of

Environmental Protection.

Many more private wells have

gone unsampled.

While the findings at the

schools in Stow have alarmed

some parents, district officials

say they don’t know whether to

be concerned.

“It’s really hard to grapple

with something that’s happen-

ing in real time like this,”

Clenchy said in an interview at

the Center School.

EPA officials have said that

by year’s end they will release

comprehensive national drink-

ing-water limits for two of the

most prevalent PFAS chemi-

cals. The agency currently

maintains a health advisory

that recommends municipali-

ties alert the public if the two

chemicals reach 70 parts per

trillion. Massachusetts uses the

same level for five of the most

common PFAS chemicals.

Recent studies suggest that

the maximum levels allowed in

drinking water should be far

lower than the current adviso-

ry. A draft report by the federal

Department of Health and Hu-

man Services — which the EPA

last year sought to prevent from

being published — said the

chemicals could be harmful at

one-sixth the levels the agency

now considers safe.

Some states already have set

stricter standards. New Hamp-

shire recently set a limit of 11

parts per trillion for one of the

more prevalent chemicals,

while officials in New Jersey re-

cently set similarly low stan-

dards for other common com-

pounds.

Some recent studies have

recommended that children

not consume water with con-

centrations of the chemicals

greater than 1 part per trillion,

calling the health risks “greatly

underestimated.”

One part per trillion is about

as much as a grain of sand in an

Olympic-size swimming pool.

Officials in Massachusetts

are considering adopting a

standard similar to one recently

enacted in Vermont, advising

residents to avoid drinking wa-

ter if the concentration of six of

the chemicals cumulatively

reaches 20 parts per trillion.

Beyond Stow, the chemicals

have been found in the drink-

ing water of seven municipali-

ties. In four — Ayer, Barnstable,

Mashpee, and Westfield — the

concentrations exceed the EPA’s

current standards. The chemi-

cals were found in lower

amounts in Danvers, Hudson,

and one section of Harvard.

The Department of Environ-

mental Protection recently test-

ed in Carver and Blackstone

and announced plans recently

to ask the Legislature for $8.

million to expand PFAS testing

of public water systems and

$50 million to back low- or no-

interest loans to help munici-

palities install new filtration

systems.

“As part of MassDEP’s con-

tinual review of emerging sci-

entific data for environmental

and water quality standards,

the department has issued draft

rules for future site cleanups

with ground water impacted by

PFAS and continues to work

closely with public water sup-

pliers to address and resolve

known or suspected PFAS con-

tamination,” said Ed Coletta, a

DEP spokesman

The state decided to test the

water in Stow because of the

schools’ proximity to the former

Fort Devens-Sudbury Training

Annex, he said. Testing of near-

ly 2,700 ground water wells on

or around military installations

in recent years has found that

60 percent contained high lev-

els of the chemicals, according

to the Department of Defense.

Many were probably contami-

nated by a firefighting foam

used for years by the military.

It was not clear that the

training facility in Sudbury is

responsible for the contaminat-

ed water at the schools, which

together have more than 800

students. An average of the two

tests showed the wells at the

Hale School had a cumulative

total of more than 38 parts per

trillionoffiveofthechemicals;

the Center School had more

than 24 parts per trillion.

Because of the testing meth-

ods used, the actual concentra-

tions are likely to be higher,

specialists said. The tests didn’t

measure many other PFAS

chemicals,andthemethods

used couldn’t detect lower

amounts of those that were

tested for, in some cases below

4 parts per trillion.

“This is just the tip of the ice-

berg,” Bennett said. “There are

probably many, many more

PFASchemicalsinthatwater,

particularly the more ubiqui-

tous short-chain PFAS, that

they did not test for.”

She and other environmen-

tal advocates have accused fed-

eral and state officials of acting

too slowly to address the risks.

“I would suggest, based on

these results, that parents be

proactive in requesting testing

in other schools,” said Elsie M.

Sunderland, a professor of envi-

ronmental chemistry at Har-

vard University.

As she picked up her second-

grader at the Center School one

recent afternoon, Amy Flynn

said she worried that her chil-

dren — she also has a fifth-grad-

er at the school — had too much

exposure to the water.

“It’s definitely concerning,”

she said.

District officials said they’re

seeking a permanent fix that

would filter the chemicals from

the schools’ water. But they

couldn’t say how long that

would take, or how much it

would cost.

With three children in dis-

trict schools, Ilana Gordon-

Brown said the results were un-

settling.

She’s now worried about her

water at home, which is closer

to the training facility in Sud-

bury.

“We need to know what

we’re drinking,” she said.

David Abel can be reached at

[email protected].

Toxic PFAS stir new drinking water worries

DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF

Bottled water is

being supplied

since fountains

at the Center

School in Stow

were shut off

because of the

presence of

PFAS in the

drinking water.

By Christine Hauser

NEW YORK TIMES

Honeybees and other polli-

nating insects are crucial help-

ers in putting food on Ameri-

can tables. But the bees’ colo-

nies have declined over the

years, leading concerned bee-

keepers and scientists to specu-

late about the causes.

A new lawsuit by leaders in

the beekeeping industry

against the Environmental

Protection Agency highlights

one often-cited worry: that

pesticides are playing a role in

those losses.

The focus of the lawsuit,

filed last week in the US Court

of Appeals for the Ninth Cir-

cuit in San Francisco, is the

EPA’s reauthorization of the

use of an insecticide that has

previously harmed honeybee

colonies.

That chemical, sulfoxaflor,

is absorbed into plants, where

it can be ingested by pollinat-

ing bees. When the bees return

to the hive, they can transfer

the chemical to the colony. This

affects the bees’ ability to breed

and survive according to stud-

ies cited by Earthjustice, whose

lawyerGregoryC.Loarieis

representing the petitioners.

An EPA spokesman said the

agency does not comment on

pending litigation. He said the

agency had sought public com-

ments in previous stages of

registering the pesticide, re-

ceiving “considerable feedback

on sulfoxaflor from stakehold-

ers.”

The honeybee has been the

dominant pollinator for de-

cades, but beekeepers in the

United States lost an estimated

40 percent of their managed

honeybee colonies from April

2018 to April 2019, according

to the latest survey from the

Bee Informed Partnership, a

nonprofit that advises bee-

keepers.

EPA sued by

beekeepers

over use of

pesticides

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