“Chemicals hazardous to human health, known as PFAS and PFOS, have been found in high enough concentrations in fish to prompt an advisory to not eat fish from seven county lakes.

Additionally, 83 public water supply sites in Livingston County are being tested for the chemicals.

‘Forty-three are complete, and they will continue this week and go into next week,’ said Matt Bolang, county director of environmental health during the board of commissioners meeting Monday night. ‘We will get sample results within the next month.’ …

In Livingston County, AECOM, an environmental consultant, is conducting testing on behalf of the state. Community water supplies, such as ones that serve schools, apartment complexes, the cities of Brighton and Howell, manufactured housing communities and some subdivisions are being tested.

‘No private wells are being tested at this time,’ Bolang said. ‘This is a surveillance effort. If they have a heightened number, there will be further sampling. … At this time, it’s wait and see. Once we have data, if there are issues, we will work through them.’

He added that at this point, the health department is not recommending anything additional and has no health data on local citizens affected…

State health officials issued an advisory to not eat any fish from the Huron River between Milford in Oakland County and the border between Livingston and Washtenaw counties. The advisory was due to the discovery of elevated PFOS levels in Kent Lake near Milford.

The advisory warns not to eat any fish from that stretch of the Huron River, as well as Kent Lake, Hubbell Pond, Strawberry Lake, Zukey Lake, Gallagher Lake, Loon Lake, Whitewood Lakes, Base Line Lake and Portage Lakes.

State environmental officials recently tested tissue from 20 fish collected last year from Kent Lake, and all 20 samples contained elevated levels of PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), said Jennifer Gray, a toxicologist for Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. She said 10 of the fish were black crappies and the other 10 were large mouth bass…

She said the source of the PFOS contamination in Kent Lake fish is unconfirmed and under investigation.

However, state environmental officials have identified a possible source.

The City of Wixom Wastewater Treatment Plant is upstream of Kent Lake, according to Stephanie Kammer of the Water Resource Division of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

‘As far as potential sources, the DEQ is still in the early phases of the investigation as we just received the fish tissue results at the end of the last week,’ Kammer said Monday in an email to Livingston Daily. ‘However … one source, the City of Wixom Wastewater Treatment Plant, was recently identified as having elevated levels … of PFOS in their discharge which is to a tributary upstream of Kent Lake.’

Kammer said city officials identified ‘an industrial user to their sanitary system and has begun the process of working with that user to minimize/eliminate the discharge.’ “

Read the full article by Susan Bromley & Jennifer Timar