Treatment Plant Filters Identified As Source Of Drinking Water Contamination

University researchers in North Carolina have pointed to an unlikely culprit for water contamination: the treatment filters themselves.

“A N.C. State University research team is testing water from New Hanover and Pender counties after tests indicated potentially dangerous compounds could be leaching out of utility filtration devices even after discharges had ceased upstream,” StarNews Online reported. “This could indicate compounds have become trapped in the carbon or microbes over time and are leaking into the cleaner water as it passes through.”

It all started in 2016, when it was discovered that GenX and other perflourinated compounds were present in the Cape Fear River. Despite efforts to curb source water contaminations, a pair of similar compounds were found to have remained in finished drinking water this summer, despite the fact that their levels in the river were dropping.

“there is still lots of uncertainty over the actual concentrations of [the contaminants],” one of the researchers wrote in an email, per StarNews Online. “But we will be able to easily see whether the activated carbon filters will be releasing these compounds still or whether the system has reached a new equilibrium, meaning no further releases from the filters.”

As researchers determined whether the treatment filters were to blame, local residents should be concerned about their water quality. Not helping matters has been a mysterious offer of home water filters for sale.

“Residents who live in the area where a potentially harmful chemical has been detected in drinking water have gotten mail that appears to be aimed at enticing them to buy a water filter system,” according to The Fayetteville Observer. “Some residents have responded to the mail and gotten tests, which claimed to show that the water contained GenX, arsenic and other compounds.”

For similar stories visit Water Online’s Drinking Water Contaminant Removal Solutions Center.