Members of the Up-Island School Committee voted on Monday to switch to bottled water in order to protect students and staff from drinking forever chemicals that have been found in the well water at the Chilmark School.
“Chilmark school has undergone several rounds of PFAS testing, the most recent in January,” Todd Everson, the water systems operator at the Chilmark School said in a meeting on Monday.
The school well has been tested for PFAS every year since 2021 by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) when a concentration of 4.3 parts per trillion was documented. This past January, the most recent test showed a rise — for a total of 6.7 parts per trillion. All readings over the past four years have been well under the state standard of 20 parts per trillion, but consistently slightly higher than the federal standard, which is 4 parts per trillion.
The school committee decided to look into carbon filtration systems for the well, which would also serve the Chilmark Preschool once it opens. But in the meantime, they won’t be serving any water to the school children, and will stick to bottled water instead.
“We don’t know what the impact of these specific levels are on young bodies — on young children. I think what we want to see is no PFAS in the water,” committee member Marsha Shufrin said.
They estimated the timeline of installing the filtration system to be earliest by February vacation and latest by next school year, and the cost to be around $10,000.
Some Up-Island School Committee members expressed concern about the source of PFAS in the drinking water. They referenced the recent reports that a Chilmark resident, Jessica Roddy, found high levels in her own private well, and said a cluster of homes near her had elevated levels. There was discussion about the Up-Island fire department because fire-fighting foams, which were largely phased out of use on the Island a few decades ago, have been cited as a PFAS source.
“Presently there’s no set mapping of wells,” committee member Robert Lionette said on Monday. “There are significant positive [PFAS tests] not that far away from the school. There’s a cluster right up on State Road, but the board of health is not at the point — not at the capacity yet — to map that.”
The health board last week agreed to work with homeowners to coordinate testing private wells for the forever chemicals.
This is an extremely serious issue. There is PFAS mitigation legislation before the Massachusetts legislature as we speak: the THIRD time it has been brought to our state lawmakers. It’s time for Mass residents to contact their state and even US House and Senate reps to get this issue dealt with NOW. The bills are S1504 and H2450.
Western Mass mill towns and places like Hoosick Falls, New York know all too well about
the heightened cancer risks — notably, for thyroid, kidney, and testicular cancer — from PFAS exposure. Investigative author Mariah Blake just presented a talk on her book “They Poisoned the World,” about the harms known to the chemical producers of these toxins (which originated with the Federal Government — shocker!), who knew of the disastrous health harms of their chemicals and covered it up. I recommend organizations on the island join together to invite her to present her findings to the community. The Williams College Dept of Environmental Studies should have her contact info.
It seems that the deniers have denied for long enough that the problem is serious enough to resort to bottled water. The deniers will continue to deny– They seem to have an amazing ability to deny anything. But, regardless of that, the article says the school has been testing for years and has consistently found high levels of PFAS. So why didn’t they “look into” filtration systems over the last few years ? They tested at 6.7 (ha ha for the kids) and now, almost a year later , it’s an emergency and they have to resort to bottled water ? Does anyone have an estimate on the cost of that ? And does anyone care about the environmental impact of all those bottles ? Somebody missed something and didn’t get on this sooner. And I’m just curious about the filters– So, they will filter a lot of water, and the filters will of course have high levels of PFAS in them. What happens to the filters and all the PFAS in them ? Has that been addressed by the school board, or will they wait until they have a bunch of spent filters and then have some emergency meeting to decide what to do with them ?