“BENNINGTON — A Silk Road man is protesting deposits of PFOA-contaminated soil near his property as part of ongoing water line extension work in North Bennington…

A vegetable and fruit tree farmer, Weinfurt said Tuesday that he has complained to state Agency of Natural Resources officials and a contractor working on the water line project. And he plans to continue that protest when state officials update the Bennington area on PFOA-related issues during meetings here May 14…

He contends that hop plants and new fruit trees were affected by excess water, which he said previously drained away from his land.

The PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) in excess soil from the digging of new water line trenches also has helped hike the level of PFOA in his well water, Weinfurt believes, with a recent test showing 430 parts per trillion in the water, compared to 297 parts per trillion in a previous test.

Both amounts are well above the state’s advisory level for drinking water, 20 parts per trillion, but Weinfurt’s well is being cleaned by a POET (Point Of Entry Treatment) filtering system.

The water line extension work in progress in North Bennington and Bennington is designed to provide clean drinking water to about 200 properties with PFOA contamination around two former ChemFab Corp. factories. The work is being funded by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, the firm the state believes is the responsible party for PFOA contamination that emanated from the factory stacks and spread over a wide area, working into the groundwater…

Weinfurt said, however, that he turned down a chance to connect to the new water line when it was installed past his property and is continuing to use a carbon filtering system previously funded by the state and Saint-Gobain. He said his POET system is working to reduce the contamination and it costs him several hundred dollars less annually than would water bills from the municipal system…

The property owner added that he is ‘beyond pissed off,’ and is considering hiring an attorney to represent him…

A group of residents near the Route 279 right-of-way near Austin Hill Road vociferously protested last fall against a proposal to dump some of the excess water line project soil there, prompting the state to revise that plan. In January, the state Department of Environmental Conservation revised its earlier plan to deposit in the right-of-way up to 44,000 cubic yards of PFOA-contaminated soil from water line projects.”

Read the full article by Jim Therrien