AUGUSTA, Maine — New federal limits on PFAS chemical levels in drinking water went into effect Tuesday that require many Maine water utilities to spend money to meet the new standards.
The federal rules require drinking water supplies to have no more than 4 parts per trillion of a group of PFAS chemicals. That is lower than Maine's current limits of 20 parts per trillion.
PFAS are a category of chemicals that can cause serious health problems if people are exposed to them over a long period of time or at certain critical life stages, like pregnancy and early childhood, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. PFAS tend to break down extremely slowly in the environment and can build up in people, animals, and the environment over time.
There are over 66,000 public water systems that are subject to the PFAS drinking water rule, the EPA estimates. Water districts statewide are looking at how to minimize the cost to customers, while maintaining the safety and reliability of their drinking water supply.
The Greater Augusta Utility District is facing this exact dilemma.
Assistant General Manager Andy Begin said two wells on the east side of the river are testing above the new EPA limits. Now, he and his team are faced with three options to eliminate the PFAS from the drinking water supply.
Option 1: Build a treatment plant
"It's a significant cost that our current capital won't bear," Begin said.
Begin estimates it will cost $5 million to build but said the Greater Augusta Utility District qualified for a $4 million Emerging Contaminants grant from the Maine CDC's Drinking Water Program. That grant comes with a caveat: Customers must match 10 percent of the project cost, which Begin said will likely come in the form of a rate increase for the roughly 16,000 people the district serves.
In the meantime, Begin and his team are using a separate grant from the state to pay for a pilot program to show if treatment is effective, both in cost and performance.
"At this point, the pilot is proving out that we are capable of treating our water," Begin said.
Option 2: Shut down affected wells and find new water sources
The second option involves essentially shutting down the two affected wells on the east side of the river. However, Begin said they would need to search for new water sources to replace those, which would involve adding new pipes to connect those sources to the network.
"We also have to take a role in being good stewards of, you know, water use and how much pressure we put on our aquifer on the west side of the river," Begin said. "Finding a new location where we would have to build what we already have here. We're looking upwards of just as much cost if not more."
Option 3: Shut down wells without replacing water source
The third options is to simply shut down the wells without replacing the water source. Begin said that could affect the district's "level of redundancy," essentially, a safety net in the event of a water main break or other issue, that allows customers on the east side of the river to still get water.
One of Maine's largest water utilities, the Portland Water District is not facing this same cost-benefit struggle, because Sebago Lake, and the surrounding forest area, naturally filter the water.
"Sebago Lake is already below those [new EPA] levels, so it's one less thing to worry about," Paul Hunt, PWD's environmental manager, said. "We're so fortunate that it's so clean, including when we test for PFAS, we can't even detect it in the levels the instruments read. We're the envy of all of our colleagues around the country. It almost seems unfair, but it's because the people of Maine have cared for this watershed."
The Hallowell Water District is not as fortunate.
Superintendent Zach Lovely told NEWS CENTER Maine that its staff are currently testing and designing a PFAS treatment plant, which could cost as much as $10 million.
While Maine Drinking Water Program grants would help pay for some of the cost, ratepayers would also have to cover a portion, similar to Augusta's grant.
Lovely said the Hallowell Water District is currently finding combined totals of 14.4 to 19 ppt of PFAS in the drinking water, which are below Maine's 20 ppt limit, but above the EPA's safe limit of 4 ppt.
Begin said the district's raw water, which is untreated, is under the 20ppt Maine limit. The pilot treatment program is testing three different PFAS removal methods. Begin said after six months of testing, those treatments are resulting in a PFAS level of zero in the water.
"We wanted to make sure if we have to translate the cost onto the ratepayers that they were well aware of why and that we had done our homework," Begin said.
Timeline and expectations
Public water systems will have three years to complete the initial monitoring requirements. They must inform the public of the level of PFAS measured in their drinking water and they must implement solutions to reduce PFAS in their drinking water to levels below the standards within five years, according to the EPA.
"There are readily available solutions on the market now – GAC, ion-exchange, reverse-osmosis – and research is underway on more technologies for everything from treatment to residual management and destruction and EPA is working to assure the most promising technologies will continue to mature and be available," the EPA states in an FAQ document about the new rules. "This action will reduce exposure to PFAS for approximately 100 million Americans, saving thousands of lives and preventing tens of thousands of serious illnesses, including certain cancers and liver and heart impacts in adults, and immune and developmental impacts to infants and children."
The health benefits include fewer cancers, lower incidents of heart attacks and strokes, and reduced birth complications, the EPA wrote.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $9 billion specifically to invest in communities with drinking water impacted by PFAS and other emerging contaminants. This includes more than $5 billion in grant funding specifically for small or disadvantaged communities, which may be disproportionately impacted by PFAS pollution.