Warrington Residents Get Account Credits For Contaminated Water

WARRINGTON, PA — The North Wales Water Authority has received a grant award to provide account credits to customers of the former Warrington Township Water System for additional fees paid to the township due to well contamination during municipal ownership of the system, the authority announced Tuesday.

The credit is expected to cover the average residential customer in Warrington for up to a year or longer, based on water use. The credits will be issued in the first quarter of 2021.

The township sold its water system to the North Wales Water Authority, which supplies water from the Forest Park Water Treatment Plant in Chalfont, in 2019 for $17 million. Earlier that same year, the state awarded $8 million in grant funding to remove PFAS contamination from water in the Warrington, Warminster and Horsham areas. Of that $8 million, $3 million was used to renovate four groundwater wells in the township contaminated by PFAS, also there as a result of the use of firefighting foam.

PFAS are man-made chemicals that have been used to make cookware, carpets, clothing, fabrics for furniture, paper packaging for food, and other materials that are resistant to water, grease, or stains. They are also used in firefighting foams and in a number of industrial processes.

Development and submission of the grant applications were approved by the NWWA Board of Directors in 2019, with the support of State Reps. Todd Polinchock and Meghan Schroeder, as well as State Sen. Maria Collett.

"While we all worked together as legislators to pull this together, we cannot underestimate the important work of the people communities that unified to find a solution to this crisis," Rep. Polinchock (R-Chalfont) said in a statement.

"In a district that has experienced some of the highest levels of PFAS water contamination in the country, and as climate change brings increasingly frequent flooding and severe weather to our region, it's crucial to invest in our water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure," Sen. Collett said in a statement. "I've heard from our municipal partners about the urgent needs in these areas, and I am proud to have worked with them to secure state funding."

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