Thurmont mayor not initially aware of MDE advisory about chemical levels in water

Jan. 30—The Maryland Department of the Environment notified a Thurmont employee that some town wells had elevated levels of "forever chemicals," but the employee didn't immediately share the letter with other Thurmont officials, according to Mayor John Kinnaird.

MDE "strongly" recommended that Thurmont tell its water customers about the level of the chemicals, known as PFAS — the same advisory the state gave the town of Myersville last month about its elevated levels.

Kinnaird said Monday that he didn't know about the advisory until The Frederick News-Post shared it with him earlier in the day. A PDF copy of the Dec. 16 letter shows that MDE sent it to David Stevens, the town's assistant water superintendent. It's not clear when he received it.

Kinnaird said Stevens shared the letter with him on Monday after the News-Post emailed Kinnaird and Stevens, asking about it.

Stevens couldn't be reached for comment.

In the notice, MDE recommended that the town inform customers of the test results and listed potential actions to reduce PFAS concentrations in the municipal water system, which included taking the affected wells offline.

The chemicals — known as PFOA and PFOS, short for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) — found in Thurmont's wells are part of a broader group of compounds present in firefighting foam, nonstick cookware, flame-retardant fabrics and other consumer products.

The chemicals' "forever" label is based on how difficult the compounds are to break down and their ability to persist in the environment and humans for an unknown amount of time.

The potential source of the chemicals in Thurmont's wells is not listed in MDE's correspondence with the town.

A similar notice was mailed to Myersville town officials in late December.

Myersville's town council voted not to send the recommended public notice to its water system customers.

Kinnaird said on Monday that he did not know why MDE sent the letter to Stevens instead of the department's water superintendent, Harold Lawson, and said that Stevens did not share the letter because he did not recognize its importance.

He said he would share the letter with the town's Board of Commissioners and that they would discuss whether to send the public notice and take other actions at a later date.

Kinnaird also said the town was waiting for its engineers to issue a plan of action for mitigating PFAS concentrations in the water system and that he was unsure of the town's ability to take any wells offline out of concern of meeting water demands.

Lawson also could not be reached for comment on Monday.

PFAS pose an array of adverse health outcomes to humans, especially in high concentrations, and include a reduced ability of the immune system to fight off infections, developmental effects in fetuses or breastfed children and increased risk of some cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study of these health outcomes is still in its early stages, however, and the prevalence of PFAS in humans makes it difficult to define clear correlations between the compounds and health outcomes, according to Frederick County Health Officer Dr. Barbara Brookmyer.

What is known about PFAS, however, is that even small concentrations pose a risk to humans, based on a lifetime of exposure.

In 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency significantly lowered the threshold that the agency believes can impact health, from 70 parts per trillion (ppt) to concentrations of .004 ppt and .02 ppt for PFOS and PFOA, respectively.

The lowest level of PFAS that instruments can detect is 4 ppt, according to the EPA. An agency FAQ states that the EPA is conducting research to improve the ability to detect low concentrations.

Tests conducted by MDE at three Thurmont water treatment plants in October 2022 showed combined levels of PFOS and PFOA around 19 ppt at one plant, 28 ppt at another plant and 46 ppt at the third plant.

Tests conducted by MDE at a Myersville water treatment plan in August 2022 showed combined levels of PFOS and PFOA around 48 ppt.

At a town meeting last Tuesday, Kinnaird also said the town is looking into grants through MDE to help pay for potential filtration updates to the municipal water system.

The persistence of PFAS make them difficult to filter, although technologies like activated carbon adsorption, ion exchange resins, and high-pressure membranes have proven to remove PFAS from drinking water in water systems and individual buildings or faucets, according to the EPA.

MDE spokesperson Jay Apperson previously wrote in an email that the department is prioritizing towns with elevated PFAS concentrations such as Thurmont when connecting municipalities to available infrastructure funding.