[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: "Army begins investigating source of PFAS in northwest Harvard wells, " former Ft. Devens, MA

[Lenny Siegel]

Army begins investigating source of PFAS in northwest Harvard wells

BY JOAN ELIYESIL 
Harvard Press (MA)
MAY 10, 2024

This week the Army began its investigation to determine if the PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) found in the water of private wells in northwest Harvard may have come from the former Fort Devens. Engineers performed a “seismic survey” along Old Mill Road this week to understand the topography under the soil there. It plans to drill two monitoring wells in Harvard to test for PFAS: one each on Old Mill and Blanchard roads, and multiple monitoring wells to the west of those roads in Devens. If testing shows that northwest Harvard’s PFAS originated in Devens, that section of Harvard would be incorporated into the Devens PFAS cleanup site, and the Army would bear responsibility for remediation.

In 2019, at the Harvard Board of Health’s request, the Army tested private wells in Harvard near areas of known PFAS groundwater contamination in Devens. Of the 52 wells that tested positive for PFAS, 45 were in the northwest corner of Harvard, at residences on Old Mill, Blanchard, Lancaster County, and Cedar Ledge roads.

The 2019 tests showed that 14 of the northwest Harvard wells contained PFAS levels that exceed the state’s maximum contaminant level of 20 parts per trillion for the sum of six specific substances (known as PFAS6). Last month the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a more stringent maximum contaminant level for specific substances. Concentrations of PFOA and PFOS, two of the more prevalent substances found in water in this area, may be no higher than 4 ppt each. Three other substances, PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA, cannot be over 10 ppt. It is unclear how many of the Harvard wells tested in 2019 may exceed any of those limits.


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For the entire article, see
https://www.harvardpress.com/News/News-Articles/army-begins-investigating-source-of-pfas160in-northwest-harvard-wells

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel at cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)