Since the state initiated new safety regulations last fall, more communities have found elevated levels of toxic chemicals, known as PFAS in their drinking water, so how does water quality in Plymouth measure up?
Bobbi Clark has the story:
Peter Gordon is Plymouth’s Water Quality Manager:
“There are a lot of communities in the local area that have had high detects for PFAS, or what they call forever chemicals. Here in Plymouth, we’ve conducted 4 rounds of testing for these particular types of chemicals, and the results have been very good and they’ve been very consistent as well.”
The town monitors 13 wells:
“Of the 13 wells that we have on 11 different sites, we had one well with a detect of 2.55 parts per trillion, which is far below the state regulatory compliance standard of 20 parts per trillion. Here in Plymouth, we don’t have a problem with PFAS fortunately.”
So what are PFAS?
“Compounds that are man-made. They are synthetic chemicals that are included in things like Teflon, a lot of food packaging comes in PFAS materials and they’re basically designed to not stick, some of them are designed to be fire-retardent, and there are actually fire extinguishers out there that contain PFAS for certain types of fires. You want to be careful if you use those as well.”
Posted with this report is a graph showing the PFAS water testing results for the town’s wells.
