10 Buildings Show High Levels Of PFAS In Drinking Water As New School Year Begins

HARFORD COUNTY, MD — As Harford County students returned to school this week, kids and staff at five buildings learned they couldn't drink the water. That's because there continues to be high levels of PFAS detected in the water.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of man-made chemicals used since the 1940s in consumer, commercial and industrial products, and have been detected in water supplies across the nation.

Students at Harford Technical and Fallston High School were asked in August to take their own refillable water bottles to school and not drink water from school facilities after alarming levels of PFAS were found in the water, Patch reported previously. The Maryland Department of the Environment discovered the high levels during routine countywide testing of school water, The Aegis reported.

Water tested at the 10 schools had PFAS contamination levels exceeding 4 parts per trillion, or ppt, the new limits for PFOA or PFOS – two of the most notorious PFAS – that the Environmental Protection Agency finalized in April. In one sample at Fallston High School, PFOS contamination alone was 25 times the EPA limit, according to the Environmental Working Group.

"We've always been in compliance and now we have areas where the numbers are below the new goals," Harford County Schools Superintendent Dr. Sean Bulson told CBS News. "We'll accommodate that with bottled water until we have a permanent fix."

At five Harford County schools, bottled water is being provided because the water is not safe to drink, school leaders said.

Those schools are:

• Fallston High School
• Harford Academy
• Harford Technical High School
• Norrisville Elementary School
• Prospect Mill Elementary School

At the remaining five schools, elevated levels of PFAS have been detected but the water is still drinkable.

Those schools are:

• Churchville Elementary School
• Dublin Elementary School
• Fallston Middle School
• Forest Hill Elementary School
• Jarrettsville Elementary School

A task force assembled to study Harford County's drinking water will be working with government entities countywide to detect and timely remove PFAS where detected. The EPA recently set limits on PFAS in drinking water as low as 4 parts per trillion and required public systems to test by 2027 and comply by 2029. Harford County’s public water system serves more than 130,000 customers and has been testing for PFAS since 2012. It uses an activated carbon treatment system, which is recognized as a current best practice for removal of PFAS compounds from raw water supplies. Harford performs more than 230,000 tests per year and all recent testing shows PFAS safely below the EPA limits.

“Safe drinking water is essential and while we are pleased that Harford’s public drinking water tests below the limits for PFAS, we are taking a team approach to this issue affecting others in our county, including public schools on well water,” Harford County Executive Cassilly said in a press release.

Related:

Contaminated School Water Prompts Warning From County, Education Officials: Report

Toxic PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Widely Found In MD Water: New EPA Data