CUC takes action to comply with new EPA health advisory

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has removed one of its wells contributing water to its water distribution system on Saipan and is monitoring its quality of water to comply with recent nationwide drinking water health advisories issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding two chemical contaminants namely perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid.

“There are several contaminants that are regulated by EPA and there are others that are not regulated. Regulated means there is a maximum that is allowed in the system, the others are ‘suspect contaminants’ and as they do more and more studies and they get the best information at a certain time then they’ll regulate those,” CUC chief engineer John Riegel said.

EPA’s new assessment indicates that drinking water with individual or combined concentrations of PFOA and PFOS below 70 parts per trillion is not expected to result in adverse health effects over a lifetime of exposure.

“It’s one of those bio-accumulating substances that once it goes in, it doesn’t go out,” Riegel said.

According to CUC, it has removed one of its wells from contributing water to the water distribution system and is monitoring the quality of water that comes from the lsley Reservoir near the Saipan International Airport in response to contamination from these two chemicals.

In 2015, CUC conducted two rounds of sampling of its drinking water supply as part of an effort to test for unregulated contaminants such as PFOA and PFOS.

While there was no detection of PFOA and PFOS in most of the 23 locations sampled from the CUC distribution system on Saipan, there were three locations where PFOA and PFOS were detected above the new 70 parts per trillion health advisory concentration amount that EPA issued.

The three locations where PFOA and PFOS were detected above the 70 parts per trillion health advisory level are all near the Saipan International Airport. The well with the highest concentration detected, well lF-208 with a combined concentration of 7,220 parts per trillion, has been removed from contributing water to the general CUC distribution system.

Well lF-208 contributed water to Isley Booster 1 which is another location where PFOS was detected at a concentration of 210 parts per trillion.

CUC believed that removing lF-208 from general service will eliminate the elevated contamination at Isley Booster 1.

The third location that PFOS was detected over the health advisory level was at the Isley Reservoir at a concentration of 170 parts per trillion in February 2015, which dropped to 97 parts per trillion in February 2016.

Although the water from Isley Reservoir is slightly above the health advisory level, CUC will continue to distribute the water while it investigates the sources of the PFOS contamination.

CUC is conducting additional sampling of ground water sources in coordination with the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality in an effort to determine the level, scope, and source of contamination.

CUC, with oversight from BECQ, said it will keep customers informed of their progress in identifying and eliminating the sources of PFOS and PFOA contamination to help the general public limit their lifetime exposure to these chemicals.

PFOA and PFOS were widely used in carpets, clothing, furniture, fabrics, food packaging, and other materials to make them more resistant to water, grease and stains as well as in firefighting maneuvers at airfields and in a number of industrial processes before it was voluntarily phased out between 2000 and 2002 by its primary manufacturer.