Resistance on arsenic standard

As New Hampshire moves to enforce costly new federal reductions in the level of arsenic allowed in public drinking water wells, several local school districts, day care centers, and municipalities are struggling to comply and in some cases refusing.

On Jan. 23, the state reduced the acceptable level of arsenic in public drinking water supplies from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts in response to a similar federal mandate that went into effect the same day. Arsenic in drinking water is a national problem but southeastern New Hampshire is a regional hot spot where hundreds of water systems exceeded this new level.

Many of those systems have been fixed or are being fixed, state and federal officials say, but about 100 have not complied. The state's Department of Environmental Services, which is responsible for enforcement of the federal statute, is sending out letters of deficiency directing those failing systems to notify their customers of the problem.

It is the first in a series of steps the state will take in the next few months to reduce arsenic in the public water supply.

``We're working on it on a case-by-case basis," said Cynthia Klevens, a sanitary engineer with the department's Water Supply Engineering Bureau. ``A lot of these systems are faced with a lot of different conditions. It's not that they don't want to comply . . . these are expensive filtration systems to own and operate."

Timberlane Regional School District is among those receiving such a letter. It responded with letters of its own notifying residents that there is too much arsenic in some district drinking water wells, said Jim Hughes, the director of facilities there.

But the district has decided not to immediately fix the problem, Hughes said, deciding to wait to see if there is any truth to the rumors that the level may be raised back up to 30 parts per billion for small suppliers because of the financial hardship involved in fixing the problem.

Only two of the district's schools, Pollard School and Atkinson Academy, exceed the new arsenic level and by just a few parts per billion, Hughes said. Fixing the problem will cost $120,000 and that's a lot of money for repairs that may prove unnecessary, Hughes said.

``We're playing a waiting game," he said. ``We're running just over the new requirements now, so we're trying to push it off as long as possible before making any major installations to our water system. We're hoping that by next spring, maybe something will change."

There are a few large municipal wells with arsenic problems, including one in Seabrook and one in Exeter.

Those towns must fix the problems, too, and in some cases at costs running into the millions of dollars.

Seabrook said it was ready to go with a $2.6 million plan but was told recently by the state that that plan is no longer acceptable because it proposed discharging the arsenic removed from the water into the town's sewer system, which discharges into the ocean, according to town manager Fred Welch. Now the town has to come up with a new plan or appeal to the federal government for permission to go ahead with some version of the first plan.

``We've already spent $100,000 on this. It's getting to be a big problem," said Welch. ``The state is saying we can no longer do this . . . we're waiting for the federal government to give us a new permit for the waste water treatment plant so we can figure out what we can and can't do."

Welch and the others feel that the new measures are excessive because they involve minuscule levels of a naturally occurring toxin that people in this area have been drinking for decades. Fifty parts per billion is the rough equivalent of a tablespoon of arsenic mixed into an Olympic sized swimming pool of water.

The toxin is found almost entirely in wells drilled deep into bedrock that has naturally occurring veins of arsenic in it. It is a colorless, odorless element that people don't know they are drinking unless they have the water tested, according to Jane Downing, chief of the Drinking Water Program at the Environmental Protection Agency's New England office.

However, arsenic is a known carcinogen that also causes skin damage and circulatory problems, Downing said.

While most readings in this area are below 50 parts per billion, some reach as high as 200 parts.

Readings elsewhere in the country have reached into the thousands.

``Once this regulation has been implemented at a national level, we'll avoid 20 to 30 fatal bladder and lung cancer cases per year," Downing said. ``That's certainly something that's worthy of our attention."

This subject will be getting a lot of attention in the next few months as the state moves to enforce compliance with the new standards. The letters of deficiency will require that suppliers also put together a professionally prepared compliance plan and a schedule for implementing it, said Bernie Lucey, a senior engineer at the Department of Environmental Services.

If a proposed filtration system gets state approval, then the well owner can begin building, with the state keeping tabs on the progress, Lucey said. If a supplier fails to comply, the matter could eventually be turned over to the state's attorney general, Lucey said.

The state has a low-interest revolving loan fund to help suppliers that need to build a new filtration system. There's also a grant program that will cover 25 percent of the cost of hooking up to larger water systems that don't have an arsenic problem, Lucey said.

``There are some things on the table to soften the financial impact," Lucey said.

One of the biggest complaints lodged by owners of tainted wells is that there are no enforcement plans for private wells that exceed the new standards. The state doesn't have the authority to do so, but there is a large campaign to get the word out to homeowners to test their wells, Downing said.

``We've been doing some mass-mailings to local boards of health," she said. ``But, we still have a lot of work to do in that area."

For the owners of public systems that have come into compliance, the costs have ranged from a few hundred dollars for filters that fit under the sink to whole rooms full of equipment that can cost tens of thousands of dollars to install and thousands of dollars each year to maintain.

Larry Homes, owner of Hampton Falls Child Care Center, just spent $3,700 for the arsenic removal system that will serve the 37 children in his care daily, he said.

``I had to do some shopping around," he said. ``It was going to be considerably more expensive with a larger system that I was first looking at. It's just a cost of doing business, I suppose."