The Orange County Water District, which serves 2.5 million county residents, expects to see nearly a third of the 200 groundwater wells in its service area shut down by year’s end because of the presence of toxic PFAS, a chemical family linked to cancer, liver and kidney damage, low birth weight and other health problems.

Feb. 6, 2020 update: Stricter PFAS levels announced, well shut down underway

Nine of those wells have already been closed and 32 more are expected to be closed in coming weeks as state regulators continue to lower acceptable thresholds for the toxins, according to district officials. As many as 31 additional wells could be shut down after testing is expanded later this year.

While water districts throughout the state are shuttering wells because of the chemicals, the Orange County Water District’s service area is one of the largest and one of the most affected. It manages a groundwater basin that provides 77 percent of the water used by 19 member agencies, which pump the water from wells in central and north Orange County.

PFAS chemicals received nationwide attention in last year’s docudrama “Dark Waters,” starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway. It portrayed a DuPont plant in West Virginia mishandling PFAS-tainted waste that was subsequently blamed for deaths of lifestock and wildlife, as well as human cancer and other illnesses

The victims referenced in the movie were exposed to thousands of times more PFAS than the amounts found in California water supplies, which are typically exposed to PFAS pollution by treated sewage released into rivers and runoff from landfills, airports and military bases.

“The concentrations found in western waters like the Orange County aquifer are orders of magnitude lower than in ‘Dark Waters,’” said Yorba Linda Water District General Manager Marc Marcantonio. His organization is one of the Orange County Water District’s 19 member agencies and is prepared to close all 11 of its wells if, as expected, the state announces new, more stringent thresholds.

But even tiny amounts of PFAS can potentially have health consequences.

The Orange County Water District launched a $1.4 million pilot treatment project in December to identify the best type of filter to remove all traces of PFAS. The district will then construct treatment facilities in each of its 9 member districts that have reported the chemicals in their well water and possibly two more districts that could report detections when testing is expanded.

“We’re hoping to have them all up and running in two years,” said Michael Markus, general manager of the Orange County Water District, of the treatment facilities.

In the interim, affected districts are importing more water from northern California and the Colorado River. Imported water, which has tested PFAS-free, costs nearly twice as much as local groundwater. Adding the construction and operation of PFAS treatment facilities to local groundwater costs would be a nominal increase compared with the price of imports, Markus said.

Potent toxins

The man-made PFAS chemicals were developed in the 1940s and have been used to help waterproof and stainproof clothes, shoes, furniture and carpets, to make nonstick cookware, to fortify cardboard food containers and paper food wrappers, to improve the firefighting foam used at airports and to assist in the process of chrome plating.

But there’s growing documentation of PFAS-related health risks.

While thousands of chemicals are found in the PFAS family and many are attracting scrutiny, attention has focused most keenly on Pefluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluoroctane Sulfonate (PFOS). Starting in the early 2000s, manufacturers began phasing out the use of both PFOA and PFOS, which are no longer manufactured in the United States.

The prevalence of PFAS has resulted in trace amounts being found in the blood of 98% of people 12 and older, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Called “forever chemicals” because they resist breaking down in nature and in the human body, the state’s advisories of acceptable levels of PFAS for water districts are minuscule — and shrinking.

In July 2018, the state Division of Drinking Water established a requirement that cities and counties be notified by their water agencies if PFOA appeared in water in concentrations of 14 parts per trillion and for PFOS, 13 parts per trillion. By last August, those amounts were lowered to 5.1 parts per trillion for PFOA and 6.5 parts per trillion for PFOS.

One part per trillion is about the same as four grains of sugar in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Since last year, the state has recommended closing wells if combined levels of PFOA and PFAS reached 70 parts per trillion. That threshold, dubbed the “response level,” is expected to be lowered to 10 parts per trillion for PFOA and 40 parts per trillion for PFOS.

“We’re anticipating they will make the change in the first week of February,” Markus said.

In addition to the Division of Drinking Water lowering thresholds, state lawmakers passed a law effective Jan. 1 requiring water agencies to note the detection of any level of PFAS in the annual water quality reports they issue to consumers. Before this year, there was no requirement that consumers be notified.

The law also says that if response levels are reached and wells aren’t shut down, each customer must be notified. However, water officials interviewed for this story said it’s unlikely a district would keep such a well operating.

While PFAS testing ordered by the state last year targeted wells with the highest likelihood of contamination, a broader range of testing orders are anticipated later this year and more wells are expected to reach the updated response levels.

The Division of Drinking Water takes its cues for lowering thresholds from the state Office Of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, according to division Assistant Deputy Director Daniel Newton.

Last August, the environmental health office issued a report that said 0.1 parts per trillion of PFOA in drinking water would pose, at most, a one in 1 million risk of cancer. For PFOS, 0.4 parts per trillion poses the same cancer risk. The cancer risk estimates were based on a new draft toxicology study performed on rodents. Risks for health repercussions other than cancer were set at 2 parts per trillion for PFOA and 7 parts per trillion for PFOS.

Water bill hikes

The Orange County Water District’s pilot treatment project in Anaheim is expected to be concluded by the end of the year, while a coinciding study is identifying specific locations for the treatment facilities.

Total construction costs, estimated at $180 million to $200 million, will be initially covered by the Orange County Water District, with construction-related increases in water costs likely to be shared by customers in all 19 member agencies — including the eight that aren’t expecting to find any PFAS in their wells.

“It’s all for one and one for all,” said Markus, noting that none of the eight unaffected agencies has complained about the financing plan.

Operation and maintenance costs will be split between Orange County Water District and each agency with a treatment facility. Markus estimated the average home in a district with PFAS treatment will pay $3 more a month for water, while the average home in a non-PFAS district will pay $1 more a month.

A larger — but shorter — financial pressure will come in the two years or so until those treatment facilities are up and running, as PFAS contaminated water is replaced by costlier imported water.

For water districts that have shut down or will shut down all of their wells, the increase could hit $20 more a month for the average residence, according to the Orange County Water District. It would be less for districts that close only some of their wells.

However, not all of the cost will necessarily be passed on to customers.

When the East Orange County Water District shut down its two wells last year, it avoided bill increases by deferring all nonessential projects. Yorba Linda Water District’s Marcantonio said bill hikes are likely “but it is too early to estimate the amount of such an increase.”

The current expansion of Orange County Water District’s pioneering Groundwater Replenishment System, in which purified, PFAS-free wastewater is pumped into the groundwater basin, will not be affected by the PFAS situation, Markus said.

And prospects of the still-unapproved Poseidon desalination plant proposed for Huntington Beach would be neither bolstered nor hurt by PFAS, said John Kennedy, Orange County Water District’s executive director of engineering and water resources. He characterized PFAS as “a temporary issue” — once the treatment plants are in place, groundwater will resume flowing as it had before the problem was identified.

Orange County has more wells with reportable levels of PFAS than Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties combined. It’s suspected that is largely a result of treated wastewater that flows into the Santa Ana River from the Inland Empire and settles into Orange County’s groundwater basin. While wastewater from the 10 upstream sewage plants is treated, the process doesn’t remove PFAS.

To begin addressing the issue, there’s been testing to analyze PFAS levels throughout the Santa Ana River watershed, including the wastewater discharged into the river, said Jason Dadakis, Orange County Water District’s executive director of water quality. Results are expected to be released in February.

While the new treatment facilities envisioned for Orange County would remove all PFAS from the targeted groundwater wells, Dadakis also foresees an effort to control the chemicals from upstream sources. With the PFAS treatment plants in Orange County tentatively are anticipated to have a 30-year life span, he envisions a day when there would be no need for them.

“I don’t think we want to run the treatment facilities in perpetuity,” Dadakis said.

But for now, the primary goal is to get the treatment operations running so the extra cost of importing replacement water can be minimized.

“We’re doing everything we can to make this as painless as possible and get retailers back to pumping groundwater,” Markus said.

Who’s affected?

Testing has identified toxic PFAS chemical in the wells the nine member agencies of the Orange County Water District, listed below. Two more — Golden State Water Co. and the city of Tustin — could be added to the list when testing is expanded to more wells later this year, according to the Orange County Water District. As many as 71 of the 200 wells in the Orange County Water District are expected to be taken offline by the end of the year, with the water replaced by more costly imported flows until new treatment facilities are constructed.

Most districts with some or all of their wells shut down will face increased costs because of the imported water that will compensate for the loss. There will also be much smaller net costs to cover the cost of the treatment plants. It is unclear exactly how much of these costs will be passed on to customers.

Here are the nine agencies that have closed wells or are expected to close wells in the next month:

Anaheim (city), East Orange County Water District, Fullerton (city), Garden Grove (city), Irvine Ranch Water District, Orange (city), Santa Ana (city), Serrano Water District, Yorba Linda Water District.