The Village of Pellston still has residents with wells testing positive for PFAS forever chemicals. Pellston does not have a public water and sewer system so individual residents need new wells and/or whole home filters need to be installed. Many already have whole home filters and receive free water testing from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE). However, in order to make residents who have been negatively impacted by this whole more needs to be done.
The PFAS chemicals in the ground will never be able to be cleaned up completely. So far, zero mitigation steps have been taken in order to try to reduce the amount of PFAS contamination in the soil. This is the latest according to the EGLE . . .
“On September 27, 2022 the Village of Pellston received a $819,000 grant from EGLE in Environmental Protection Agency funding in order to determine the feasibility and potential service area for alternate water options due to PFAS contamination. The grant is expected to be signed on October 10, 2022.
“Emmet County is preparing a Response Activity Plan for soil investigation in areas of past AFFF release and for managing impacted soil as part of airport improvement construction projects and is evaluating possible soil remediation technologies.”
As a Pellston resident and business owner who is getting water tests annually from EGLE I can tell you that even though my well is not testing positive for PFAS forever chemicals, I’m still not drinking the water. In order to make residents of Pellston whole there are three solutions and none of them are inexpensive . . .
- Install a central water pumping and filtrating facility where no PFAS chemicals are present. Connect that facility to homes in Pellston.
- Remove volumes of contaminated soil to reduce the amount of PFAS that can continue to spread underground and enter groundwater. Then, insert a vertical liner underground that prevents groundwater from being able to pass through the barrier. This is more common with underground oil tanks that have experience a leak.
- Provide negatively impacted homeowners with new, deeper wells that are below contaminated ground water as many residents in Pellston have point-driven shallow wells.
EGLE has also expended the free water testing region to include areas south of the Village of Pellston into Maple River Township to include former Lake Kathleen and portions west and south of the West Branch Maple River. Visit the EGLE website at the web address above and click on the maps toward the bottom of the page to see the expanded sampling area which includes portions of Woodland Road, Ringler Road, Hartman Road and Pine Trail.
Map of Michigan PFAS contamination sites.
