NEWS CHRONICLE PHOTO BY MICHELLE DAVIS — An exterior view of the Tama water treatment plant. On Monday, the city issued a health advisory about the level per and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) after a test showed a concentration of 5.7 parts per trillion.

On Monday morning, the city of Tama issued a drinking water health advisory regarding the levels of per and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) indicating that testing conducted on Sept. 27 showed a concentration of 5.7 parts per trillion (PPT), well above the health advisory level of 0.02 and above the four PPT threshold that requires a public notification.

Cody Nehring of the city water department spoke to the News Chronicle on Tuesday and said that while the numbers may look alarming on paper, there is no major cause for concern at the present time. PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” are used to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The advisory notes that PFAS exposure can negatively impact fetus development and cause cancer, along with liver, immune system and thyroid effects. Nehring listed some of the items where PFAS is commonly found, including non-stick surface pans and spatulas, and called the level “miniscule but still above the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) regulation.”

“We are currently in (the process of) engineering and developing a new filter process that will remove PFAS. We’ve also been core sampling for new wells to find wells that have no presence of PFAS,” he said. “So we are on it. We are trying to make sure that even though those levels are low, that we just get to levels of (it being) totally absent from our water.”

He added that it’s hard to specifically pin down when the new process will be complete and operational, but he hopes to at least have the ball rolling by the spring of 2024. In response to another question about why the PFAS levels are what they are in Tama — last summer, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported that several cities, including West Des Moines, Sioux City, Muscatine, Ames and Burlington also showed high concentrations — Nehring wasn’t entirely sure, but he said it could potentially be attributed to a number of factors.

The building plaque dedication for the current plant, which was constructed in 1985.

“We’ve been told that there used to be junkyards all over Tama, which could, through erosion and stuff, that could be the thing, but we haven’t found a root analysis and cause,” he said. “All we know is it’s in the water and we wanna get it out to make everybody’s water better.”

During a prior interview, Nehring’s predecessor Kent Campbell, who recently retired, said the DNR took an interest in Tama’s supply because of the now-shuttered paper mill and the common use of PFAS in industrial processes. Campbell also estimated the total cost of the project at that time to be in the neighborhood of $1 million.

“We’re being proactive about it. We’ve gotta be because this is becoming a huge issue. Of course we wanna protect the public, and we want everybody to have the utmost confidence in our water system,” Campbell said. “They turn that cap, and there’s not gonna be any contaminants that are gonna affect them, hurt them, give them cancer… Once you lose their confidence, it’s hard to get it back, so we certainly don’t want that to happen.”

So although the chemical is a carcinogen and “not something healthy for you,” Nehring wanted to reassure citizens that the problem is being addressed. According to Nehring, Toledo is not dealing with the same issues as the sister city’s water supply is pulled from a deeper Jordan well between 1,200 and 1,800 feet deep — by comparison, Tama uses a shallow well that’s only about 50 feet deep — and Tama is also exploring the option of switching to a deeper Jordan well at different sites while seeking to avoid spots with higher iron concentrations.

It’s hard to estimate the cost of the upgrades at this point, but Nehring is hopeful the city can qualify for some government grants to help pay for them.

“Once we get closer to (the) deadline, I’m sure I’ll have hard set prices, but right now, we’re still doing some exploring so there’s expenses that pop up that we don’t even know about yet,” he said.

Corey McCoid, the water supply operations supervisor and PFAS coordinator for the Iowa DNR, said the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards on reporting and public notification used to require a higher threshold but have dropped down to four PPT, and he added that $9 million in federal funding has been set aside for PFAS removal as a result of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, including provisions for “small, disadvantaged communities” like Tama.

He also explained some of the factors that led to testing for PFAS in certain Iowa cities and reported that the level in Tama only jumped back above four PPT in September, which triggered the public notification. The lower 0.02 health advisory figure, according to McCoid, was implemented because of the potential for “vaccine interference,” and the three main options for treatment other than a new source or well are granulated activated carbon, ion exchange and reverse osmosis.

“What we’re seeing a lot so far is that when a community identifies they have PFAS, they’re taking a well offline and then blending the water that they have. Until we know what that final standard is, it’s hard for a community to plan to remove PFAS when they don’t know what the endgame’s gonna be,” he said. “The good news is we have funding available to help communities address their concerns with PFAS.”

Large companies like 3M have announced plans to phase out the use of all PFAS chemicals for their industrial processes in the future.