Camas well tainted by PFAS to return to service

To meet increased water demand during the summer months, the city of Camas plans to bring Well 13 back online this week, even though it has the city’s highest levels of toxic “forever chemicals.”

“The recent increase in temperatures across the area has required all city wells to be in production,” according to the city’s website, including Well 13, the city’s most productive drinking water source.

The city is also asking residents to reduce their water usage this summer by voluntarily watering or irrigating their lawns on an alternating-day schedule.

The city has been taking Well 13 offline during lower-demand winter and spring months since 2023, when it discovered higher-than-normal levels of synthetic chemicals commonly known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), which don’t break down in the environment.

Found in everyday consumer products such as nonstick cookware, raincoats, cleaning products, carpeting and food packaging since the 1960s, PFAS have been connected to a range of health problems including kidney cancer, liver cancer, decreased immunity and reduced birth weights.

“PFAS are found everywhere,” Rob Charles, the city of Camas’ utilities manager, told city officials earlier this month. “They’ve been around for 75 years … and were used in so many products. That’s why we’re dealing with them now.”

Charles said Washington cities have until 2027 to complete their water system monitoring for PFAS and until 2029 to implement treatment plans.

Federal limits set in April 2024 require PFAS levels in public drinking water to be less than 4 parts per trillion. Formerly, Washington cities were operating under the state’s recommended maximum of 15 ppt.

Treatment identified

“Camas is not alone,” said Tyler Kane of Carollo Engineers, the Portland-based consultant helping Camas work on a long-term strategy for ridding its water system of PFAS. “There are many other utilities in Washington and across the nation that are dealing with this.”

In fact, Camas has used lessons from PFAS abatement efforts in other Washington cities, including Vancouver and Lakewood, to guide its own treatment plan.

But while those cities are utilizing granular activated carbon to remove PFAS from public water supplies, Camas is set to become the first utility in the Pacific Northwest to use a PFAS treatment known as ion exchange, Charles said.

Ion exchange removes PFAS from the water, then stores the chemicals in a medium to be incinerated or sent to landfills, Charles said.

The city’s testing showed that the ion exchange treatment was incredibly effective at removing PFAS from the Well 13 water, with no PFAS making it through the removal system.

“That suggests that (ion exchange) would work very well at this site,” Kane told Camas officials during the city council’s May 5 workshop, adding that conversations about the best way to dispose of the spent ion exchange containers are ongoing.

Construction of the Well 13 treatment facility is expected to cost $11 million. Charles said city leaders are still looking into potential revenue sources.

A Camas hearings examiner is set to consider permits for the city’s proposed ion exchange treatment facility at Well 13, 135 S.E. Cramer Lane, just a few blocks southeast of Camas’ Louis Bloch Park in a primarily residential neighborhood.

The city hopes to go to bid for the treatment center’s construction in July and begin construction later this year. Without any hitches, Charles said, treatment at Well 13 should be up and running by early 2027.

Source of PFAS unclear

Meanwhile, the city is continuing to plan for the long term.

Two other wells in Camas have also tested above the federal limit of 4 ppt. (That’s the equivalent of 4 gallons of water added to 1.66 million Olympic swimming pools, Charles said.) The city recently received state approval to drill a new well at the Well 13 site once the well has PFAS abatement in place.

One tricky aspect to planning for long-term PFAS treatment, Kane said, is the city’s inability to find a definitive PFAS source.

“There is no silver bullet to what might be causing this issue,” Kane said. “There might be some known contributors, but overall, there is nothing that explains why it’s so ubiquitous in the groundwater.”

The city’s search for PFAS sources has looked at historic records within Well 13’s collection area but did not find any potential culprit.

“We looked for an industry or business that may have been dumping a pollutant laden with PFAS into the river but didn’t find anything,” Charles said.

He added that due to an ongoing environmental cleanup plan between the Georgia-Pacific paper mill and the state Department of Ecology, the city is unable to obtain any data related to PFAS testing or sampling at the mill site, located a little over 1 mile west of Well 13.

More information

For Camas residents worried about consuming PFAS in their drinking water, Charles said small-scale PFAS treatment technology continues to advance and that there are now several in-home PFAS treatment options available.

The state Department of Health offers tips for finding the right in-home PFAS treatment and suggests searching for products certified to “NSF/ANSI 53” or “NSF/ANSI 58” reduction levels.

For more information, visit doh.wa.gov/pfas.

Kelly Moyer: 360-735-4674; [email protected]