Military Times reported on April 26th that “the water at or around 126 military installations contains potentially harmful levels of perfluorinated compounds…”, “…and more than 90 sites that reported either on-base or off-base drinking water or groundwater contamination, in which the water source tested above the Environmental Protection Agency’s acceptable levels of perfluorooctane sulfonate or perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as PFOS and PFOA.” These compounds are used in concentrated forms on military airfields in the foaming agents used to put our aircraft fires.
This report was based on sample results from 2017 in which the Department of Defense tested various sites for the unregulated compounds of concern. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) utilizes what is known as Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) to collect data for contaminants that are suspected to be present in drinking water and do not have health-based standards set under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Testing for these contaminants was required of drinking water systems throughout the nation during the UCMR 3 round of testing performed in 2013 and again in 2014.
Destin Water Users did participate in the UCMR 3 water testing which included samples taken from all drinking water wells. DWU feels it is important to inform our customers that all results were absent of the PFOS and PFOA compounds, and there is no reason for our customers to be alarmed by the recent news report.
In Destin and most of the surrounding area, our sole drinking water source is groundwater from the Upper Floridan Aquifer- a deep underground limestone aquifer protected from surface water influences by a confining layer. Because of the nature of our aquifer, there is no direct recharge from the shallow ground water in our area and therefore contamination from perflourinated compounds is unlikely.
To read more on the news release, please go to https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/04/26/dod-126-bases-report-water-contaminants-harmful-to-infant-development-tied-to-cancers/
For more information on the PFOA and PFOS compounds, please refer to the EPA website at https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking-water-health-advisories-pfoa-and-pfos