Search expands for PFAS contamination from Barnstable County Fire Training Academy

Jeannette Hinkle

Cape Cod Times

Published Jan 12, 2022 

BARNSTABLE —  After public comments urged a broader study of the scope of PFAS contamination emanating from the now-shuttered Barnstable County Fire Training Academy, county consultants have developed an expanded plan for the next phase of what will be a long and complicated cleanup effort.

Consultants will now search for evidence of PFAS contaminationfarther to the south and southeast of the academy, work that will help shed light on how far the “forever chemicals” — some of which have been linked to human health problems — have spread through soil, surface water, groundwater and even the area’s food chain.

PFAS chemicals (or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) were present in firefighting foam used at the training academy.

Consultants presented the revised scope of work for the second phase of what is formally known as a comprehensive site assessment of the academy to the Barnstable County Board of Regional Commissioners and the Assembly of Delegates on Jan. 5. 

The completion of the site assessment report will take roughly eight to 10 months, according to Licensed Site Professional Roger Thibault, of BETA Group. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson Edmund Coletta said the report was originally due on May 9, but because of the extensive nature of the proposed assessment, the county is discussing the potential for new deadlines with DEP.

“It is clear to both parties that due to the expansion of the Phase II work, the obstacles to releasing funding, and the requirement to incorporate the public review and comment, the county will not meet the May 9, 2022, deadline,” Coletta wrote in an email to the Times. “When MassDEP and the county have agreed upon deadlines, those deadlines will be made public.”

Thibault said his group will provide periodic updates to the public, detailing interim findings as work on the site assessment report progresses, likely on a quarterly basis, before publishing a draft report open to public comment.

“We're hoping and planning on mid-fall of 2022 for that milestone, and that will set the stage for the later phases where we basically figure out what to do about the problem,” Thibault told delegates.

What is the plan?

The regulations that govern the academy’s cleanup, called the Massachusetts Contingency Plan, require that the county evaluate the nature and extent of the PFAS plume creeping outwards from the property — both horizontally and vertically — in the comprehensive site assessment.

To do that evaluation, Thibault said, consultants will sample and test soil, groundwater and surface water at and around the academy. Some of those samples will come from existing monitoring wells in the area — including some owned by the Cape Cod Gateway Airport, which is now studying its own PFAS plume — but others will be pulled from new areas not yet sampled for PFAS.

Phase II Comprehensive Site Assessment Work Barnstable County Fire & Rescue Training Academy by Cape Cod Times on Scribd

“We have very significantly reworked and expanded the groundwater investigation program to take our study far to the south and east of the Fire Training Academy, towards the municipal airport and municipal wells to the south and east that may have been impacted,” Thibault told delegates.

The county will need to obtain access to private and town-owned land to do that investigation, which could take time, Thibault said. 

The results of the soil and water tests will eventually be added to a computer model that will help map the PFAS plume as it exists today, and where groundwater flow patterns suggest it might go next.

Thibault said his team will take stock of the results they get along the way, and if tests suggest the plume is larger than anticipated, the county would consider taking samples from a wider area, including the land between the Cape Cod Gateway Airport and the Maher Wells, a source of public drinking water for the area.

If the county pursues that testing, the results could help shed light on how the academy’s PFAS plume is or isn’t interacting with the PFAS plume from the airport.

In addition to mapping the area’s PFAS contamination, BETA Group and its subconsultants — including GHD, an engineering firm with international experience in PFAS work — will assess potential risks to the environment and human health that the contamination might pose.

To conduct the ecological risk assessment, consultants will study two kettle ponds near the academy: Flintrock Pond, which has no known public access point, and Mary Dunn Pond, which is accessible via a small path. In addition to tests of groundwater, pond water and soil, the ecological risk assessment will involve some testing of pond fish, if they exist. 

To conduct the human health risk assessment, which Thibault called the most important part of the report, BETA and its subconsultants will study the ways that people could be exposed to PFAS from the academy. Because nearby wells are being treated for PFAS by the Hyannis Water District, Thibault said public drinking water is not a likely exposure route, but consultants will research how coming into contact with contaminated groundwater, soil and even fish could affect people’s health.

“It brings in all the routes of exposure for all different types of people, including somebody who might have to do construction work on the academy, but also people who could be exposed to groundwater down the plume,” Thibault said. “It brings that all together in a quantitative assessment using established methodology that is set by both DEP and U.S. EPA.”

When the site assessment report is complete, the county will solicit public comment and transition to studying and choosing potential cleanup methods.

“When we've got enough key conclusions, late, late, late in the phase two process, we will be starting that on a preliminary basis,” Thibault said. “But it will start and proceed in earnest after the final phase two report is submitted to DEP. That will be phase three, which has a very long but instructive name: the evaluation and selection of remedial alternatives.”

New plan an improvement

Hydrogeologist Tom Cambareri said BETA Group’s new plan is an improvement over the draft scope of work presented by the group in the summer, which he characterized at the time as a hodgepodge of incremental tasks that would do little to further understanding of PFAS’s spread from the Academy.

Cambareri, who has worked for both the town of Barnstable and the county on contamination issues at the academy, said the new scope of work proposes a better plan for determining how far downgradient of the academy PFAS from that site has spread.

More:PFAS contamination: Of 21 Barnstable ponds tested, 21 had contaminants, town report finds

More:As Barnstable hunts for new sources of public drinking water, PFAS contamination rears its ugly head

Cambareri stressed that incremental public updates about the status of the site assessment will be crucial to ensuring the study results in a comprehensive look at the academy’s PFAS plume, as Thibault said the sampling plan could expand further depending on initial results. 

“They mentioned that they would have quarterly reporting, and I would hope somebody would hold them to that,” Cambareri said.

In addition to more comprehensively mapping the academy’s PFAS plume, county consultants will forensically analyze the PFAS they find, in part to determine whether the chemicals came from the county-owned academy or from another PFAS source, such as the town-owned Cape Cod Gateway Airport. 

Those findings could impact which entity is on the hook for cleanup costs, but they will also provide data that could help researchers understand how different PFAS compounds are moving through the environment, and what cleanup methods might be most successful, as not all PFAS compounds respond to the same treatment methods.

Because cleanup costs could be astronomical, and because PFAS from different sites could be merging, the region as a whole would benefit from coordination between town, county and state governments on how to address the area’s PFAS contamination in a holistic way, Cambareri said.

“I think a higher-level group needs to get together to talk about what the most cost-efficient and reasonable, equitable response to this contamination is, because it's all public money,” Cambareri said.

How much will this cost?

County Administrator Beth Albert told delegates that the county won’t know the cost of future phases of the academy cleanup until the site assessment report — which represents the second of five phases — is complete.

The current phase is estimated to cost $4.5 million, according to county officials. 

The study of the PFAS plume’s spread and the creation of the report detailing those findings will cost roughly $1 million, County Special Assets Manager Stephen Tebo said.

In addition, the county must pay for a state-mandated expansion of a “pump and treat” system that pulls contaminated water from underground and pipes it to a treatment apparatus that removes PFAS before discharging the water back into the environment, he said.

The county is currently trolling for grants that might help offset the costly work, Tebo said.

“This is a large, complex site,” Thibault said. “There are several key factors at this site, from Flintrock Pond all the way down to the Maher Wells, that make it a challenging, complex site. The kettle ponds, several major municipal production wells, an intervening airport and an airport with its own PFAS releases — it is a challenging landscape.”