Park City has put millions of dollars into harmful metals from its drinking water. But it found a less well-understood contaminant in its wells in 2022: PFAS.
A growing recognition that these polyfluoroalkyl substances linger in the environment, and can be harmful, has led to federal regulation.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced changes to those regulations in May.
One proposed change will let local providers apply for an extra two years to limit the amount of PFAS in their drinking water. That pushes the deadline from 2029 to 2031.
The changes don’t impact Park City, where the groundwater contamination stems from fluorocarbon ski wax. Water Quality and Treatment Manager Michelle De Haan said the city is already testing for and limiting PFAS.
“What we're doing is blending water from the 3Kings Water Treatment Plant — that has no PFAS in it — with the well water, to concentrations that are well below the new drinking water standards established by EPA for PFAS,” she said.
EPA also announced an aboutface on four of the six kinds of PFAS it regulates. It won’t set standards for those four, since it lumped them together rather than regulating them individually.
“It’s not really lessening the control over the regulation, but it was more of a challenge where EPA did not follow its own rulemaking criteria,” De Haan explained.
The Summit County government’s water company, the Mountain Regional Water Special Service District, is also already in compliance.
General Manager Andy Garland told KPCW PFAS tests are coming in “well under” EPA’s limit of four parts per trillion.
“Which would be, you know, four drops of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools,” Garland added. “So we're good, for now.”
The EPA has only targeted PFAS in drinking water thus far. Summit County taxpayers may see a more significant impact if, or when, it turns to wastewater.
The PFAS used in nonstick pans and waterproof outdoor clothing, for example, travels from household drains to treatment plants. That water is discharged into local streams.
“We're waiting for guidance in the way of regulatory limits before we make a significant financial investment to remove those compounds,” Mike Luers, general manager at the Snyderville Basin Water Reclamation District, told KPCW.
He said it could be years before the EPA decides how much PFAS wastewater plants are allowed to discharge.
Park City Municipal and Mountain Regional Water are financial supporters of KPCW.
