Thurmont officials set aside road project to focus on water concerns

Mar. 23—Thurmont officials on Tuesday said they would delay a Thurmont Boulevard expansion project as they focus on purchasing and installing filtration technology for town water treatment facilities.

Mayor John Kinnaird said the costs and construction associated with reducing concentrations of PFAS — a group of chemicals known as per- and polyfluoralkyl substances used in non-stick cookware and other consumer products — are a larger priority than the road project.

The Thurmont Boulevard project would have extended the boulevard and connected Moser and Frederick roads. An initial estimate for the project was around $5.3 million.

Although the town developed plans and the Board of Commissioners approved an ordinance to borrow bonds for the project, the town had not yet fully committed to the project.

Kinnaird said he instructed the town staff to stop working on the project's financing, putting it on hold.

"I don't think that this is the time that we should be doing this," Kinnaird said Tuesday of the Thurmont Boulevard project. "There's other issues that we're going to be looking at, including the issues we're going to have with the water treatment facilities we're going to have to put in."

Last October, the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) tested for PFAS in five of the town's wells.

The results showed elevated concentrations of two specific PFAS compounds, known as PFOA and PFOS, in water samples.

In a December letter accompanying the town's PFAS results, MDE recommended that Thurmont officials take the affected wells offline, acquire alternative drinking water source, or install equipment to remove PFAS.

The town has since applied for a grant through MDE to fund such equipment and has tasked town engineers to design a filtration system to remove PFAS to undetectable levels, aligning with a recently proposed federal rule that could go into effect this year.

More recent tests by the town on Feb. 15 showed a slight rise in PFOA and PFOS levels at the five town wells MDE tested in October.

The combined PFOA and PFOS levels at one well, Well 8, went from 45.71 parts per trillion (ppt) in October 2022 to 48.52 ppt in February, according to a March 15 town Facebook post, which noted there is a margin of uncertainty.

The Facebook post said the town is now operating Well 8 on an "as-needed basis to supplement water when the demand arises."

Under the new federal rule, utilities would have to keep PFAS concentrations in drinking wells below 4 ppt.

Thurmont Chief Administrative Officer Jim Humerick said Thursday that Well 8 has always been the least used, and that shortly after the most recent PFAS results arrived March 13, the more limited "as-needed" practice was put in place.

The town will continue testing wells quarterly, according to Kinnaird, and will move forward on designs and implementation of PFAS filtration technologies whether the grants through MDE are approved or not.

He estimated that it would take a year and a half before any filtration technologies are operational.

"This is important enough that we're moving forward with or without the grant funding because it's the right thing to do," Kinnaird said Thursday, though he expects some funding later.

At the Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, Commissioner Wes Hamrick supported Kinnaird's decision to set Thurmont Boulevard aside, citing concerns with the cost and the importance of PFAS mitigation.

"Although I was very, very much so behind the concept of [Thurmont Boulevard], I certainly was not in favor of taxpayers having to shoulder a lot of the expense," Hamrick said. "Thank you for being reasonable and seeing this through, especially with the reality of the PFAS contaminants. It's not an option. We have to get down to that [EPA mandated level]."

Kinnaird said he hopes to return to the Thurmont Boulevard project with grants or outside funding, alleviating concerns about costs.

He was also blunt about the town's hesitancy to pay out of pocket for the project despite it being in the town's plans for decades.

"Sometimes, we have to bite the bullet and make our own improvements," Kinnaird said.