Tucson Wants To Alter Consent Order That Could Force It To Serve PFAS Water
Throughout the country, drinking water treatment operations are doing their best to avoid supplying consumers with water contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — so called “forever chemicals” that have leached into supplies from industrial sources and have been tied to long-term health issues. In Arizona, this effort has turned into a debate with the U.S. EPA.
“Tucson Water is negotiating with the Environmental Protection Agency to amend an old agreement that requires the city to serve more than 5,8000 acre-feet of water annually cleaned by [a south-side] plant,” according to the Arizona Daily Star. “A key reason is to insure the city is never required to sell customers water from the Tucson Airport Remediation Project, or TARP, in the event the plant is overloaded by toxic PFAS compounds. The compounds, in very heavy concentrations, are now slowly migrating through the aquifer toward south-side wells that already send water with lesser PFAS levels to the plant for cleanup.”
A 1988 consent order between the EPA and Tucson that is still in place dictates that the city serve water from the south-side plant, originally imposed to guarantee removal of trichloroethylene, which contaminated local wells in the 1970s.
Now, local officials want the consent order changed in case it forces Tucson to serve water that is overloaded with PFAS. Of course, the success of this effort will depend on the EPA’s willingness to cooperate — which does not appear to be guaranteed at this point.
“We are working with the State of Arizona, the City, and others to evaluate and address the identified areas of PFAS groundwater contamination,” the agency told the Star in an email. “We aim to effectively capture and clean up groundwater contamination at the site to protect public health and the environment.”
The agency did not directly address a question about the potential for changing the 1988 consent order.
Meanwhile, Tucson officials are working to impose a ban on dumping PFAS compounds into the ground and the county sewer system and trying to get the federal government to clean up PFAS groundwater pollution linked to military facilities.
To read more about the rules that dictate how utilities provide drinking water to consumers, visit Water Online’s Regulations And Legislation Solutions Center.