Hampton Bays Water District Gets Green Light To Turn On Two Of Three Wells

“Hampton Bays Water District officials announced on Monday that two of its three drinking wells, which were shut off last year after two unregulated chemicals were found, were put back in service over the weekend.

Last year, routine testing of the three wells revealed that the water contained 73 parts per trillion, or ppt, of the contaminants—perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA—slightly more than the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard of 70 ppt, according to HBWD Superintendent Robert King.

The wells were immediately shut off and remained inoperable for more than a year while the district installed a $1 million carbon filtration system to remove the contaminants from the drinking water.

On Saturday, Mr. King received the okay from the State Department of Health to put the two wells back into service. He indicated that the district’s third out-of-service well should be up and running within the next seven to 10 days.

Mr. King could not immediately provide the water testing results, which were completed by officials from the Suffolk County Water Authority on Friday, but he said that they were below the EPA’s standard.

Joseph Pokorny, deputy chief executive officer for operations at SCWA, said on Monday that the authority’s lab technicians reported levels of less than 20 ppt of PFOA and 40 ppt for PFOS.

‘Everything was negative,’ he said. ‘We did not see any contamination after the filter.’

‘It was removing it all,’ Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said of the carbon filtration system.

Officials from the water authority also sent water samples to the State Department of Health last week, and, according to Mr. King, are expecting to see specific results later this week.

While the three wells were offline, the district was pumping out, on average, 7 million gallons of water per day, whereas it should have been closer to 9 million. Mr. King reported on Monday that with the two wells back in service, that number has jumped closer to 8 million.”

Read the full article by Valerie Gordon