chemistry: Toxic 'forever chemicals' force Mass. towns to face 'true cost of water'

Littleton's new water treatment plant is not, shall we say, a head-turning architectural marvel. It's a large, unadorned brick building resembling a fieldhouse. Or perhaps an overgrown shed.

But when Nick Lawler looks at it, he beams.

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"A thing of beauty!" Lawler, the general manager of the Littleton Electric Light and Water Departments, said. "It's not the outside that matters — it's what's inside."

What's inside is a $16 million, state-of-the-art plant designed to treat Littleton's drinking water for the toxic chemicals known as "PFAS." The so-called "forever chemicals" have contaminated drinking water supplies across Massachusetts, and there's no easy or cheap way to remove them.

For a town with only 10,000 residents, $16 million was a big price tag: the utility's annual water budget is usually around $4 million. And with more regulations expected soon, the price of clean drinking water in the state is about to get a lot higher.

Lawler's colleague, Water and Sewer Superintendent Corey Godfrey, stepped into the cavernous plant to point out four 24-foot-tall steel tanks — "filter vessels" that will remove PFAS from the water. They dwarfed the other tanks in the room.

"They go down into the basement," Godfrey said, peering down a still-unfinished hole. He said each tank will be filled with 20 tons of activated charcoal. "That’s the carbon you need to remove the amount of PFAS we have."

Littleton isn't the only town spending millions to clean up the chemicals. Barnstable has so far invested $27 million to deal with PFAS, for example; and Cambridge recently spent $8.5 million to temporarily switch water supplies while changing its PFAS filters.

But the PFAS costs for Massachusetts communities may just be beginning. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to release its own, potentially stricter, rules in March. These new regulations could cause the price of clean drinking water in the state to soar.

"Substantial investments have been made in Massachusetts to the tune of $100 million-plus already," said Jennifer Pederson, executive director of the Massachusetts Water Works Association, an industry group. "I’m hoping everyone supports clean drinking water, but we know that at times when it comes up for town meeting votes, it's been a challenge to get people to understand that they have to pay that true cost of water."
A drop of water in a swimming pool

In 2020, Massachusetts set a limit on the amount of PFAS in public drinking water. The state limit is one of the strictest in the country: 20 parts per trillion for the sum of six PFAS chemicals. That’s like a drop of water in a swimming pool.

"All the other drinking water standards for all the other chemicals are in the concentration range of parts per billion or parts per million. ...That gives you a sense of really how toxic these chemicals are," said Wendy Heiger-Bernays, a toxicologist at the Boston University School of Public Health.

PFAS chemicals were invented in the early 20th century. Because they have useful properties, companies have used them in thousands of products, from food packaging to waterproof jackets to firefighting foam. Over time the chemicals wash or flake or crumble off these products into landfills, soil, water, air and human bodies.

PFAS molecules don't break down easily, hence the "forever chemical" nickname. And because they are so pervasive, they may as well be called "everywhere chemicals," too. In Massachusetts, they're widespread in ground and surface waters, rivers and even Cape Cod ponds. Studies estimate that 98% of Americans have detectable levels of PFAS in their blood.

Heiger-Bernays, an expert on the toxicology of PFAS, advised the state on their drinking water regulations. She said she was satisfied with the rules: "I mean, as a public health professional, I would like to see the most protective approach taken," she said.

But she said she's also a pragmatist, and she acknowledged that getting PFAS levels down to that drop-in-a-pool level is difficult and expensive.

"The cost of doing this is enormous," she said. "I mean, it's absolutely mind-boggling."