Sussex town's residents told not to drink or cook with water because of PFC contamination

A tiny town in southern Delaware is facing a major water crisis.

Residents and businesses in Blades, a Sussex County town just south of Seaford, have been told not to use their tap water for drinking and cooking after perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs, were detected in the town’s public water supply.

That means people will have to use bottled water to brush their teeth, boil pasta and brew their morning coffee for the foreseeable future. Officials say it is still safe to bathe in and use for laundry.

“I was really concerned from hearing this, that something like that could have happened,” said Blades Mayor David Ruff. “And not knowing how long ago it may have happened. It’s not just something that happened yesterday or the day before. It’s a natural concern, living here all my life, and never expecting anything like this.”

PFCs, which include a large group of chemicals, are not regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, which sets standards for pollutant levels and requires those in charge of public water systems, like the one impacted in Blades, to make sure drinking water is safe.

Since PFCs are considered “emerging contaminants,” which are pollutants that require more scientific studies to understand their impacts to human health and the environment, the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control has teamed up with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify possible hot spots and test the water in those places.

The recent tests in Blades revealed the town’s three public wells, which provide water to businesses and 1,250 residents in the 3.5-square-mile municipality, contain both perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as C8 or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, chemicals that fall into the broad category of PFCs.

Long-term exposure to PFOA and PFOS can cause developmental problems in fetuses or nursing infants, cancer, and can impact the liver, immune system, thyroid and cholesterol levels, according to the EPA.

An EPA advisory on the chemicals states that because they are used in so many consumer products — basically everything from carpets to cookware that is water- or stain-resistant or contains Teflon — most people have been exposed in some form.

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Because this is the first time Blades’ water system has ever been tested for PFCs, it is unknown how long the chemicals have contaminated the town’s drinking water supply.

“We do not know — there’s no baseline,” said Timothy Ratsep, administrator of DNREC’s site investigation and restoration section. “People two years ago did not even know there were adverse health effects from this. As soon as we found out the concentrations were there, we’re here trying to address it.”

Ratsep said the concentrations of PFCs in Blades are much lower than those discovered at a site in New Castle County. The Dover Air Force Base is another location DNREC and EPA have detected PFCs, he said.

At those two more northern sites, historical use of fire-fighting foam, known to contain PFCs, prompted the testing, Ratsep said. Blades was slated for testing because of two plating companies, an industry known to use PFCs in the manufacturing process of products such as non-stick skillets.

Ratsep said there is no evidence that either site — one that closed in the 1990s and another that is in operation — are related to the contamination recently found in the groundwater.

Procino Enterprises on South Market Street in Blades, whose website says the company is “a hard chrome plating and griddle manufacturing company,” declined comment.

Asked if the company uses PFCs in its production, an employee who answered the phone said, “absolutely not,” and hung up. Additional phone calls to the company went unanswered.

The Associated Press reported that Procino, also known as Procino Plating, has been part of ongoing efforts to remediate chromium contamination in the groundwater, and previously was fined and cited as recently as 2014 for violations related to hazardous waste.

State and federal officials are investigating the source and extent of the contamination and Gov. John Carney has authorized the Delaware National Guard to support efforts to get residents safe drinking water. The agency has provided two 400-gallon portable water tanks and is coordinating troops to help with 24-hour distribution.

An immediate response

Within 48 hours of the test results, cases of bottled water filled the bay at the Blades Volunteer Fire Company on East 5th Street as residents lined up to learn more about the contaminants found in their tap water.

“I hope they’re not charging me extra for it,” said resident Iris Foot, trying to make light of the situation.

On a more serious note, Foot said she had more questions than answers as she watched a fireman load two cases of water into her vehicle.

“All I do is drink water,” the retiree said. “And of course I drink coffee, you have to have that. I’d like to know when this is going to be fixed and how long this has been going on before we were notified.”

Less than half a mile away at Café Milano, most people were avoiding pasta and instead ordering items that didn’t need water to be cooked like pizza, wings and cheesesteaks, said manager Agustin Gulpa.

“They said to not even wash the dishes with this water,” he said. “It’s terrible.”

Blades Elementary School also told students to stay home on Friday after learning about the water contamination.

The robocall that went out Thursday night is how Katherine Norris, who has two young children and has lived in Blades since 1990, found out there was a problem with her water.

“How long have we been exposed?” she said. “We don’t know. It also can give you thyroid issues, which I have. It just makes you wonder now. And I drink like five cups of water — I drink water constantly right out of the refrigerator.”

Over at the elementary school, which has an enrollment of about 500 in kindergarten to second grade, district staff convened to figure out how they can resume classes without using the water.

"We're still learning and the experts are still learning about the potential impacts," Seaford School District Superintendent David Parrington told the Blades staff on Friday morning. "We're going to work through this."

The school announced on social media that students will be back in class on Monday. Parrington told his staff on Friday that water fountains and sinks will be shut off, and that the cafeteria will alter its menu to avoid using tap water.

A public health official, who declined an interview and told The News Journal to contact the agency’s public affairs office for questions, told the Blades staff that the water deliveries were out of “an overabundance of caution” and that it is likely everyone in the room has been exposed to PFCs from a variety of sources.

In his presentation to the staff, he also cited a 2004 study in which scientists found that 98 percent of people tested had PFCs in their blood stream. He added that suspected health effects are all based on animal testing, which has found that chronic exposure can lead to some types of cancer, elevated cholesterol and other health impacts.

Public health officials said in an email that the concentration of PFCs found in Blades “is above the health advisory of 70 [parts per trillion] but is still a relatively small amount. The low concentration, coupled with the idea that health effects result from long-term exposure, lead us to conclude that the overall risk here is low.

“However, this situation is still a concern, which is why we are working with partners to ensure the residents have access to safe drinking water.”

Water deliveries will continue until officials determine the best long-term solution. Ratsep said some options could include hooking into nearby Seaford’s water supply, digging deeper wells or adding carbon filtration systems on Blades’ existing wells.

“This is a nationwide issue that we’re trying to address and as soon as we found out that there was a concern out here we’ve been taking immediate action,” Ratsep said.

PFCs are prevalent

Hydrogeologist Scott Andres of the University of Delaware Geological Survey said he could not help but be slightly jaded about the test results.

“They’re everywhere,” Andres said of PFCs. “It’s a ubiquitous compound in the environment because of wide distribution of places they are used. They are the precursors to Teflon and Monsanto’s competing product.”

Last year, DuPont and Chemours entered into a $670.7 million settlement to resolve 3,550 lawsuits related to the release of PFOA into the ground, air and water from the Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

The News Journal in 2016 documented DuPont's role in PFOA contamination in the Mid-Ohio Valley, a region along the Ohio River that includes parts of Ohio and West Virginia.

DuPont also operated the world's first nylon plant in nearby Seaford, which was sold to the Koch brothers' Invista company in 2004.

Since 1992, the EPA and DNREC have entered into multiple agreements with DuPont and then Invista to monitor and clean up possible contamination, including carbon tetrachloride and arsenic groundwater plumes, from the 35-acre site built during the Great Depression.

In Blades, Ratsep said PFCs were the only groundwater contaminant of concern found in the public wells. The concentrations found in the drinking water averaged nearly twice the federal health advisory limit, according to data provided by Ratsep.

But at detection levels as low as parts per trillion — one part per trillion is like one drop of water in 21 million gallons of water — there is quite a bit of room for error, Andres said.

Andres pointed to a study he worked on in which scientists explored whether they could detect mercury contamination at detection levels as low as one part per trillion. He said those involved dressed in what looked like space suits just to collect the sample.

“It was absolutely nuts,” he said. “These things are everywhere in our daily life. How can you remove the possibility of contaminating your sample if these things are everywhere? You basically have to shrink wrap somebody to do the tests.”

He also said Delaware has no specific health advisory level for PFCs, although the EPA has established a health advisory level at 70 parts per trillion. Other states have set specific limits, he said, all at varying levels.

“Delaware has not adopted any number,” Andres said. “It doesn’t exist.”

That’s mostly because a lack of studies on the human health effects of PFCs means it is difficult to pinpoint what are truly dangerous levels, he said.

“Delaware seems to get really excited about these new contaminants and not so excited about some of the old standards known to be significant problems over large areas, like nitrate or arsenic,” Andres said. “Those are very common problems in Delaware water and there’s rarely a response of this type.”

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The other trouble with emerging contaminants like PFCs is that when one is prohibited, like when consumers fought against BPAs a few years ago, it just gets replaced with another scantily studied chemical, Andres said.

“In the United States, the chemical manufacturing industry pretty much has carte blanche to do what they want,” he said. “You can find this stuff everywhere — you will find it everywhere because it most likely is everywhere — and if it’s not, you’re bringing it with you when you’re coming to look for it. I hope they’re testing the bottled water because it’s probably in that, too.”

Officials from Blades, DNREC and the Division of Public Health will update residents on the water contamination during a meeting set for 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the Blades Volunteer Fire Company at 200 E. Fifth Street.

Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford.