The Army has an ‘action level’ policy for cleaning up PFAS, which is three times the federal EPA standard

It’s easy to follow the rules when you’re the one writing them.

That was the sentiment among angry community residents and local officials at a meeting with Navy representatives in Riverhead Tuesday evening, called to discuss cleanup of groundwater contamination caused by the operation of the former Grumman site in Calverton.

Residents who have waited months for the Navy’s plans to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s tough new drinking water standard for PFAS contamination learned at the meeting that the Defense Department has adopted a standard all its own — and it’s three times higher than the maximum limit adopted by the EPA in April.

Addison Phoenix, the Navy project manager for the Calverton cleanup, announced the DOD “policy value” for PFAS: 12 parts per trillion, three times the federal EPA’s drinking water limit of 4 parts per trillion.

Phoenix was forced to explain why the DOD would not enforce the new federal rule or how it chose the three-way threshold, saying she had no information.

“Where does 12 ppt come from?” Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director of Citizen campaign for the environment in Farmingdale, Phoenix asked at the meeting. Esposito said she had never heard of another agency using 12 ppt.

“Is that a song the DoD created? Is this a health standard number? Where did you get this number? And why would the Department of Defense have a different number than the EPA, which is based on science and health,” asked an incredulous Esposito. “Is this just a convenience number?”

“The DoD value of three times the EPA MCL is the value we are allowed to use,” Phoenix responded. “I can’t tell you much about the background of that.”

Furthermore, Phoenix said that none of the private drinking water sources contaminated with the forever toxic chemicals from the former Navy plant had PFAS levels higher than the Department of Defense policy value of 12 ppt.

According to a September 3 policy memo issued by the Department of Defense, PFAS contamination must exceed the policy value of 12 ppt before cleanup is prioritized by the Department of Defense.

The 12 ppt number is something “you just made up,” Riverhead Water District Superintendent Frank Mancini countered, arguing that the Navy’s presentation was “misleading.”

“There are currently detections of over 4 ppt in private wells on River Road that you know are caused by your plume,” he said. “So you present this as, ‘No problem. It has not reached our level of action.” But you just took the level of action to the next level,” Mancini said.

“There are people who are exposed to your PFAs through their private sources. I just want people to understand that,” he said.

“If you can make up your number, it’s easy to have no detections,” Mancini said.

MORE COVERAGE:

County testing finds PFOS/PFOA in private wells south of former Grumman facility in Calverton

The provincial health department notes that PFAS is above the drinking water standard in more wells in Calverton

Mancini is a member of the Calverton Restoration Advisory Boardwho serves as a community liaison with the Navy in the cleanup of the superfund site. The advisory board has been waiting since May to find out how and when the Navy would implement the EPA’s tough new rule, which sets a maximum drinking water level of 4 parts per trillion for most PFAS, harmful substances known as “forever chemicals” and are linked to fatal cancers, effects on the liver and heart, and immune and developmental damage in infants and children, according to the EPA.

There is extensive PFAS contamination in the soil and groundwater of the former U.S. Navy manufacturing plant in Calverton, which was operated from 1954 to 1996 by a Navy contractor, Grumman Corporation/Northrop Grumman. PFAS contamination has been confirmed in groundwater at the southern border of the former aerospace manufacturing plant. location, where the Navy has installed a fence line monitoring system.

As Mancini forcefully noted at the meeting, the chemicals have been found in drinking water wells of private homes south and east of the site.

PFAS have also been found in fish caught in parts of the Peconic River south of the former Navy plant, prompting the state health department last year to advice regarding the consumption of caught fish in that area of ​​the Peconic.

For years, the Navy has been reluctant to acknowledge the migration of chemical contamination into the site’s groundwater flow and has resisted accepting responsibility for off-site cleanup efforts.

The Navy also maintained that it was not required to meet New York State’s drinking water limit of 10 parts per trillion for PFAS. The federal EPA had no maximum contaminant level for PFAS at all until it finalized the new rule in April and set an MCL of 4 ppt.

Navy representatives previously argued that the Navy could only use the federal EPA’s 70 ppt lifetime health advisory for PFAS to determine what cleanups were needed. But when the EPA dramatically lowered its lifetime health advisory in June 2022set in 2016, from 70 ppt to 4 parts per quadrillion — a level so low it can’t even be detected — the Navy said it would continue to rely on the old EPA health advisory level to allow intervention in areas nearby from her country. former Calverton factory.

MORE COVERAGE: The Navy Won’t Change Its Position on Groundwater Contamination Outside the Grumman Fence, Despite New EPA Health Advisory for PFAS

Environmentalists see a pattern in the military’s response.

The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization that represents environmental and health interests, called the DOD’s position “predictable but outrageous.”

The decision “leaves the Pentagon free” to deliver as much safe water in a timely manner as it would need if it followed the stricter limits. the organization says in a press release. It avoids the need to immediately deliver safe drinking water to communities near dozens of bases in at least 21 states where PFAS have been detected above federal limits but below the three-fold threshold, the organization said.

Esposito, who also serves on the Calverton Restoration Advisory Board, called the Navy’s new position “insulting and demeaning.”

“This tells the public that they are bullies and don’t care about us,” Esposito said in an interview Thursday.

After the EPA announced its final rule establishing an MCL for PFAS in April, a public meeting of the Calverton Restoration Advisory Board scheduled for May 7 was canceled. The RAB had asked the Navy to discuss how it would respond to the EPA’s new rule at the May meeting. Phoenix responded in an email that the Navy could not discuss PFAS cleanup because it was waiting for the Defense Department to “issue policy” on how the strict new federal drinking water standards and lifetime health advisories would be incorporated into the PFAS cleanup plan for the Calverton site. The Calverton Restoration Advisory Board meeting would be rescheduled, Phoenix said. It finally took place on October 29 at the Residence Inn in Riverhead.

More coverage: Navy to Community Advisory Board: PFAS cleanup in Calverton off agenda due to strict new federal limits on ‘forever chemicals’

On Tuesday, Phoenix said the Navy will continue to collect more samples for testing. The Navy will review all the data it has collected and “re-evaluate what a potential resampling effort should look like or what the footprint might need to change to,” she said.

The Navy is in the process of conducting that assessment and will inform the community about it and any additional sampling it plans to conduct at the next RAB meeting in January, Phoenix said. A date for that meeting has not yet been announced.