PASCACK VALLEY—Approximately $900,000 in emergency appropriations will be used to purchase and install three granular activated carbon vessels for the treatment of man-made toxins, linked to certain cancers and other ailments, at three local water wells, now offline.
The filters, temporary fixes against perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), will cost $200,000 each. Another emergency appropriation for $247,000 was approved for engineering and installation costs.
Final costs for a permanent filtration system to eliminate PFOAs has not yet been determined.
The emergency appropriations were approved by the Park Ridge Council late last year following elevated readings of a newly regulated contaminant, PFOA, at three or the borough’s 18 online wells. The wells were immediately taken offline on Nov. 10, 2021 due to elevated readings, said local Park Ridge Water officials.
The Park Ridge Water Utility serves about 5,000 customers in Park Ridge and Woodcliff Lake.
The $1 million in emergency appropriations was approved Dec. 14, 2021 to order the three granulated activated carbon vessels — for filtering PFOA contaminants — from Phillip Ross Industries, of Melville, N.Y.
The resolution passed Dec. 14 showed the borough’s “intent to purchase” the three granular activated carbon vessels, said Borough Administrator Julie Falkenstern, and put a reserve on the filtration devices due to the new state regulations on PFAS chemicals in drinking water affecting water utilities statewide.
Falkensetern told Pascack Press that it was hoped the ordered GAC vessels would arrive by April or May for spring installation on the offline wells.
She said engineers and water officials were now working on “permanent fixes” that need to be installed on the three wells that tested over PFOA limits by year end.
She said she was not sure when final costs on a permanent structure to filter out PFOAs from Park Ridge wells will be available, although she said the borough would likely need to bond for the expense.
Falkenstern said the state’s infrastructure bank will likely help reimburse the borough for some costs, via grants and loans.
H2M, of Melville, N.Y. was awarded the engineering contract for $247,000 to install the new granulated activated carbon (GAC) filtration systems.
The new state standard for PFOA, which is part of a larger class of chemicals known as PFAS, which are associated with cancers and other illnesses, is 14 parts per trillion. It is 13 parts per trillion for PFOS.
The state says one part per trillion is “equivalent to one drop split among 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.”
In 2020 the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection published its adoption of stringent, health-based drinking water standards for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), chemicals that are extremely persistent in the environment and have been linked to various health problems in people.
The notice said, “due to the recent DEP rules, many water utilities … will be required to install new treatment processes to eliminate these chemicals that are found in their source water.”
In mid-November 2021, Park Ridge Water wells 12, 14 and 18 were found to contain elevated PFOA levels and were taken offline.
The water utility advised customers on Dec. 21 that the three wells that had tested over state limits for PFOA and were offline.
“The DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection) limits appear to have been established due to an abundance of caution and a concern about consumption of water over an entire lifetime,” said the Park Ridge Water notice.
To assure local customers, Woodcliff Lake Mayor Carlos Rendo posted that no water from any of the three wells testing above state PFOA limits went directly from the wells into homes.
The Dec. 21 letter noted that Park Ridge’s water utility had been monitoring concentrations of PFOA since 2020 and planning for the necessary treatment when concentrations of the contaminant “were trending towards the then-pending New Jersey Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL).”
Park Ridge Water said customers will continue to receive quarterly notices of high PFOA levels — even though the wells are offline — until the elevated levels of PFOA can be reduced.
The quarterly notices are mandatory notifications required by the state DEP.
Customers can access additional information and online resources under the “Important Information About Your Drinking Water” link on Park Ridge’s municipal website.