Toxins found in drinking water near SC air base. Did base pollute people’s water?
Elevated levels of a potentially hazardous class of chemicals are showing up in drinking water at a small mobile home park near Shaw Air Force Base, a sprawling military installation in Sumter County that regulators suspect caused the pollution.
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control’s findings at Crescent Mobile Home Park this week are among the first cases of per- and poly-fluroalkyl substances the agency has documented in a public water system in South Carolina, according to the department.
Per- and poly-fluroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a class of chemicals of increasing concern in drinking water systems across the country because they are thought to cause a variety of health problems, including cancer and developmental issues in young children. Research is still being conducted about their health effects.
Recent testing by environmental groups indicates some level of the chemicals exist in numerous water systems nationally, but DHEC had found few occurrences during special testing from 2013-2015. That testing program found PFAS in one Upstate water system, although later tests did not verify the chemicals were present, agency spokeswoman Laura Renwick said.
DHEC informed Crescent Mobile Home Park residents Thursday of its findings after two separate series of tests this month identified the toxins in drinking water. The levels found in the water exceeded a federal health safety standard. DHEC has no immediate plans to provide bottled water to the residents but it is advising neighbors not to drink from their taps.
“They might want to consider not using that water for personal consumption,’’ said Mike Marcus, director of DHEC’s water division.
DHEC’s findings come as the agency released a new strategy Thursday to begin looking more aggressively for PFAS in drinking water across South Carolina. The plan focuses on finding out how widespread they are in drinking water and who is most at risk, according to an agency report released Thursday.
To get a better picture of the situation, DHEC will sample and analyze water at nearly 600 state drinking water plants, according to the agency’s plan. The agency also plans to test private wells, the department said.
DHEC already has found that a handful of private wells in eastern South Carolina’s Pee Dee region are tainted by PFAS, Renwick said. The wells are near areas where sludge, a suspected source of PFAS pollution, was spread on the land, according to DHEC.
Only in recent years have some utilities and governments begun to look for the chemicals. The federal government does not require utilities to routinely test drinking water for PFAS..
Certain types of PFAS, used in firefighting foam at air force bases since the early 1970s, are believed to cause threats to health for people who are exposed over a long period of time. Shaw Air Force Base has historically used the foam.
Agency officials said they do not know how long the chemicals have existed in the Crescent Mobile Home Park’s drinking water. More than 250 people live at the Crescent Mobile Home Park.
Meanwhile, the department has checked a second mobile home park near Shaw to determine if the water is contaminated. Those test results are not complete, Marcus said.
Henry Porter, who heads DHEC’s land and waste management division, said evidence suggests the PFAS pollution came from Shaw Air Force Base through the years. Shaw relied on firefighting foam, which contains PFAS, according to a 2019 Department of Defense report. The federal report documented groundwater pollution from PFAS on the base property.
“They are most likely the source,’’ Porter said when asked if Shaw caused contamination at the Crescent Mobile Home Park.
Porter said the agency is working with Shaw, which is investigating the pollution. A spokesperson for Shaw was not immediately available Thursday.
The city of Sumter, the largest water supplier in the area, is not known to have any problems with PFAS from the air force base, DHEC officials said.
PFAS are manmade chemicals that are widespread in the environment. They were used for decades, beginning in the 1940s, in an array of products, including non-stick cooking pans, stain resistant carpets, cosmetics, dental floss and firefighting foams, DHEC’s report said. Researchers in South Carolina and Florida have documented high levels of PFAS in the blood of alligators in parts of those states, a 2016 study said.
In addition to military bases, potentially major sources of PFAS pollution include textile and paper plants, sewage treatment plants and landfills. There are more than 4,000 varieties of PFAS, but little is known about many of them. Some of the most common PFAS are no longer manufactured in the U.S. because of their suspected hazards to human health.
State Rep. JA Moore, a Charleston area Democrat, said DHEC’s findings are not surprising. The Charleston newspaper, The Post and Courier, found elevated levels in the Crescent Mobile Home Park water after hiring a lab to test, he said. But he said the elevated pollution levels verified by DHEC are nothing to dismiss.
“If this happened in my community, I’d be raising holy hell,’’ he said.
DHEC needs to help persuade the Legislature to approve a bill he introduced that would for the first time regulate PFAS in drinking water in South Carolina, Moore said.
Moore’s bill would establish a maximum contaminant level for PFAS, which would give DHEC authority to take enforcement action against a water system for pollution above the limit.
Moore took issue with DHEC’s decision not to provide bottled water to residents of Crescent Mobile Home Park, even though the department is advising against drinking the water.
“What if the people can’t afford the bottled water and they have no other solution?,’’ Moore asked. “You are probably talking about individuals on very limited incomes who have limited resources.’’
According to test results released Thursday, DHEC found two types of the chemicals — known as PFOS and PFOA — in wells at the Crescent Park at levels above the federal health advisory standard. Those types of PFAS were in firefighting foams like those used at Shaw Air Force Base. The foams were often used to put out petroleum fires at air bases.
Data released by DHEC show PFAS exceeded the federal health safety advisory standard of 70 parts per trillion in Crescent’s three wells. Toxin levels can exceed the standard either individually for PFOS and PFOA, or collectively.
All of the test results exceeded the collective standard, DHEC says. Individually, PFOS exceeded the standard in three separate tests, according to DHEC. The highest individual reading was 100 parts per trillion for PFOS in one well.
This story has been updated from an earlier version.
This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 12:47 PM.
