Mike Wolanin | The Republic Columbus City Utilities Director Roger Kelso addresses guests during a ribbon cutting ceremony to show off the remodeled and updated area of the Columbus City Utilities building in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, April 20, 2023. Portions of the facility to were recently remodeled and updated. The Security features were added to the main lobby to control access to employee areas. Handicap parking spaces and the sidewalk were updated to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The business office received new furniture and carpet.
Columbus has shut down a municipal well after testing by state regulators found elevated levels of long-lasting and highly toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other illnesses.
The well, which is located between Garden City and railroad tracks on the south side of the city, was shut down after testing by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management detected PFAS at levels that exceed proposed federal limits.
PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are a cluster of industrial chemicals associated with a variety of serious health conditions and have been used in products ranging from cookware to carpets and firefighting foams and consumer products since the 1940s, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Research suggests exposure to certain levels of PFAS can lead to reproductive effects in humans, developmental delays, increased risks for certain cancers, elevated cholesterol levels and weakening of the immune system, according to the EPA.
The chemicals are sometimes called “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down naturally in the environment — or do so slowly — and can remain in a person’s blood indefinitely. U.S. manufacturers have voluntarily phased out compounds such as PFAS, though there still are a limited number of ongoing uses for them.
Officials at Columbus City Utilities said they are taking the results seriously and are evaluating treatment technology to completely remove PFAS from the city’s drinking water. Officials are unsure whether the well’s closure will be permanent.
“We’re aware (of the results), and we have extremely positive plans going forward to eliminate this from our water very quickly,” said city utilities Director Roger Kelso.
Currently, officials say it is hard to identify the source of the contamination at this point, though they said they plan to investigate where it might have originated.
PFAS contamination can come from a variety of sources, including firefighting foam, numerous consumer products, among other things. A recent study by researchers at New York University found PFAS in automotive lubricant, engine oil, grease and hydraulic fluids.
Officials believe that the general area near the well that was closed may have been used to store several types of chemicals over the years, Kelso said.
“It could be from anything around here,” Kelso said.
“When you look at kind of the Garden City area and the railroad, it’s not necessarily surprising,” Kelso said. “But here again, it’s hard for me at this point to truly indicate, ‘This is what had happened.’”
Test results
The testing was part of an effort by IDEM to examine the prevalence of the chemicals in public water systems across the state and the efficacy of drinking water treatment, officials said.
IDEM began testing certain participating public water systems for PFAS in 2021. The effort has been broken into phases based on community size, with Columbus in the third phase of testing, which includes water systems that serve more than 10,000 people.
Participation in IDEM’s PFAS testing program was voluntary because the substances are not yet regulated under the Clean Water Act, officials said. Not every water system in the state opted to participate.
But among all the water systems in the state that participated in IDEM’s testing program, samples of untreated water in the well that Columbus officials shut down had by far the highest concentration of a common type of PFAS called PFOA, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may soon regulate.
In addition, treated water from Columbus City Utilities also was found to have the highest concentration of PFOA among all of the water systems that participated in IDEM’s program.
Earlier this year, the EPA proposed strict limits of 4 parts per trillion for PFOA and another PFAS called PFOS in treated drinking water. The EPA also wants to regulate the combined amount of four other types of PFAS, including two other chemicals called PFBS and PFHxS that also turned up in Columbus’ water supply during IDEM’s testing.
To put proposed regulation in perspective, one part per trillion is roughly the equivalent of a single drop of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, experts said.
In the now-closed Columbus well, PFOA was detected in untreated water at 45 parts per trillion, according to IDEM. The next highest concentration of PFOA in untreated water among participating water systems in all three phases of testing was 12 parts per trillion at a location in South Bend.
PFOA also was found in Columbus’ finished drinking water at 7 parts per trillion, nearly twice the proposed EPA limit. The next highest concentration in finished water was 6.3 parts per trillion at a location in Clark County.
PFOS was detected at 9 parts per trillion in a sample taken from one city well and at 2.2 parts per trillion at another well but was not found in finished drinking water.
PFBS was detected in nine different municipal wells in Columbus, including at 40.9 parts per trillion in the well that the city shut down and ranged from 3.1 to 14.2 parts per trillion in the other eight wells. It also was detected in the city’s finished water twice, at 7.9 and 2.8 parts per trillion.
PFHxS also was detected at 6.3 parts per trillion in the well that was shut down but was not detected in finished drinking water.
Other water systems near Columbus also have been tested for possible PFAS contamination.
The Eastern Bartholomew Water Corp. participated in the latest round of IDEM testing but no PFAS were detected in untreated or treated water. The Nashville Water Department and North Vernon Water Department were included in the first round of IDEM testing, but no PFAS were detected in treated or untreated water at either utility.
However, PFAS were detected in untreated water at the Edinburgh Water Utility but not in finished drinking water.
IDEM also tested the water supply at Camp Atterbury and did not detect PFAS. But contractors in a separate testing effort detected PFAS in the groundwater near a storage site on the north side of the base, though “it does not impact the Camp Atterbury water supply,” officials said earlier this year.
The contamination may be related to the storage of firefighting foam that contained PFAS.
A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that at least 45% of the nation’s tap water is estimated to have one or more types of PFAS.
Searching for solutions
Kelso said the city is undertaking a “more rigorous evaluation” of treatment technology to completely remove PFAS from the city’s treated drinking water.
The most promising option right now involves activated carbon treatment, which uses specialized filters to absorb compounds, according to the EPA. The filters would look like silos on outside of the treatment plants and can be expensive, Kelso said.
“They’re highly effective in (the) removal of PFAS,” Kelso said. “…We are very confident that we can come up with sound, cost-effective removal processes.”
At the same time, city officials are in discussions with attorneys over the possibility of joining a lawsuit against some manufacturers of PFAS.
In the meantime, the city plans to open four new wells next summer, said Kelso, who added that PFAS were not detected at the sites for the new wells.
IDEM said it plans to send additional sample bottles to Columbus City Utilities to resample and confirm the results.
Department spokesman Barry Sneed said IDEM has informed about a state fund that provides low-interest loans to Indiana communities for projects that improve drinking water infrastructure, and that communities impacted by PFAS-contaminated drinking water may also qualify for grant funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The detection of PFAS is the latest unregulated contaminant to turn up in the city’s water supply.
In 2017, two wells were shut down after tests revealed the presence of low amounts of 1,4 dioxane, an organic chemical used as an industrial solvent that the EPA considers to be a “likely human carcinogen.” Another city well was taken offline around the same time for E. coli contamination.
“(PFAS) is something that is treatable,” Kelso said. “We can get it out of there. We have planning to get it out of there. …We’ll fix it.”
