Sacramento water providers are planning how they will meet and cover the costs of complying with new federal limits on “forever chemicals.”
One local water agency estimates it will cost $45 million to remove the chemicals, also known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, from contaminated groundwater wells.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced new drinking water standards last week in an effort to reduce exposure to the chemicals, which are used in a variety of products, take a long time to break down and may cause health issues. Public water systems must test for the chemicals and have five years to reduce them if they exceed the new limits.
About six of the Sacramento County Water Agency’s 70 wells wouldn’t meet the new standards, county spokesperson Matt Robinson said Tuesday. But those wells are among the 15 the agency stopped operating over a couple years after detecting forever chemicals in them, Robinson said.
“Fortunately for the Sacramento County Water Agency, we have enough water,” Robinson said. “So, by taking these 15 wells offline, we're not being impacted.”
The agency doesn’t know why the sites have higher PFAS levels compared to the rest of its system, but he said a consultant estimated each well will cost $3 million to fix.
Although settlement money from a class-action lawsuit, grants and loans could help cover the costs, Robinson said the county is considering the potential of raising water rates.
If the agency increases rates for its about 58,000 customers, he said it will also be because of other water system improvements – not just forever chemicals.
California American Water, or Cal-Am, is one of more than 20 other water systems in Sacramento County. Spokesperson Evan Jacobs said the company, which serves about 65,000 homes and businesses in the region, aims to comply with the new standards in a cost-effective way.
“Our focus is really on technology, efficiencies of scale and cost management to ensure that we're installing the treatment we need to continue providing safe, clean water while not driving up rates too much,” Jacobs said. “We need to also focus on the affordability of this.”
The company operates 112 wells in the Sacramento region and is looking to install about five new ones a year for the next few years, Jacobs said. To increase efficiency, the company is considering strategies such as building a cluster of wells that could be connected to a single treatment plant. Installing new wells in areas that aren’t affected by forever chemicals is another strategy, Jacobs added.
Cal-Am has been treating one well in Rancho Cordova for PFAS contamination since 2017, Jacobs said. The company sued the federal government in 2020, alleging it spent $1.29 million to install a granular activated carbon treatment system because the military contaminated the groundwater at Mather Air Force Base with PFAS. Fire-fighting foam the Air Force used for training at the base allegedly leached into the aquifer the Rancho Cordova well draws from.
The complaint became part of the class action lawsuit — the same one the Sacramento County Water Agency referenced — against the company DuPont, which produces PFAS. Cal-Am is in the process of working on claims under the settlement, Jacobs said.
But higher levels of forever chemicals in some Sacramento-area groundwater wells could be linked to structural matters, too. Carlos Eliason, spokesperson for the City of Sacramento Department of Utilities, said building wells deeper decreases possible PFAS contamination.
Sacramento’s older wells are more shallow in comparison to the ones at a new facility near Cosumnes River College, which treats water from as far as 1,200 feet underground, Eliason said. Some well sites also aren’t big enough to add a lot of additional equipment to treat the water for PFAS, Eliason said.
The city, which gets 20% of its water from groundwater and the rest from the Sacramento and American rivers, has 30 permitted wells. Nine are in service, while the rest aren’t currently being used for various reasons, including the city’s strategy of letting groundwater wells recharge during wet years while drawing from them more frequently during dry years.
The city has no history of detecting PFAS in its water from the rivers, but Eliason said meeting the new forever chemical standards could cost at least tens of millions of dollars. City staff are coming up with a financial plan for compliance and are trying to balance quality and affordability, he added.
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