“ARUNDEL — Details are emerging about the source of potentially harmful contaminants detected in the water at the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Wells Water District’s Kimball Lane Well and the district’s response to the findings.
The PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, detected in the West Kennebunk well last spring originated from a farm on Curtis Road in Arundel, where sludge from both the Kennebunk and Ogunquit sewer districts and fly ash and sludge from the S.D. Warren paper mill was spread as soil enhancers in the mid-1980s, according to a local water official, state environmental officials and the farm’s attorney…
Stoneridge Farm, at 362 Curtis Road, is a small dairy farm that has been in owner Fred Stone’s family for at least 100 years.
According to KKWWD Superintendent Norm Labbe and Kerri Malinowski, coordinator for Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s Safer Chemicals Program, the spreading of wastewater sludge on fields was common practice in Maine and across the United States 20 to 30 years ago…
A data report issued by the DEP on Feb. 24, 2017, shows PFAS were detected in water samples taken from the residential farm well, a small perennial stream, and a pond in the gravel pit at the farm. DEP findings show a PFAS level of 50 ppt in the residential well, 7.93 ppt in the stream and 41.07 in the gravel pit pond.
DEP also tested for PFAS in the milk tank at the farm, with results showing 690 ppt, nearly 10 times the EPA guideline for drinking water.
Soil tests on the farm where the sludge was spread yielded higher readings as well. Twelve soil samples were taken with readings ranging from 1,800 ppt to 896,200 ppt, though soil readings are different from water, according to Labbe.”
Read the full article by Donna Buttarazzi.
To answer the operant question of “do they”, the evidence says YES! To whit: The recent Trump/Pruit attempt to withhold recent research on C8’s (AFFF) because it would “set off a public relations nightmare”, which it did. Or, most recently, The July 9, 2018 item from ProPublica: (Bombs in our Backyard) How the EPA and the Pentagon Downplayed a Growing Toxic Threat.
There have been so many of these events going back at least the half century or more that I can recall that I believe the American public suffers from cognitive dissonance or a state of deep hypnosis.
Wake up ! …. and stay woke.