Little Compton school will lead the way in RI to abate ‘forever chemicals.’ Here’s how.

Alex Kuffner, The Providence Journal — You’d never think there’s anything wrong with the water that comes from the town well next to Wilbur & McMahon Schools. There’s no odor or taste that would signal that anything’s amiss.

But the groundwater that’s pumped up from an aquifer 180 feet below the surface contains trace amounts of so-called “forever chemicals” that have been linked to cancers, immune problems and other health effects.

Little Compton has at least four years before it needs to come into compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules that were originally set under the Biden administration, but the town decided to act sooner rather than later. It could have a $550,000 filtration system up and running by early 2026 that would remove concentrations of PFAS from the water that supplies five municipal buildings, including Town Hall, a community center and the 220-student school.

And for that reason state officials are holding up this rural community on the Sakonnet peninsula as an example to operators of other public drinking water systems in Rhode Island that are faced with an expensive problem that most probably wouldn’t have even contemplated a decade ago.

“A lot of people associate drinking water problems with urban areas and lead contamination,” said William Fazioli, chairman of the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank. “But this shows that other communities have drinking water issues, too.”

Forever chemicals are ‘everywhere’

Invented in the 1930s and heralded for their ability to repel oil, water and grease, PFAS compounds were used by such companies as Dupont to make Teflon and by 3M to make Scotchgard. Their use is also effective in smothering petroleum fires.

Today, there are thousands of the substances that have been used in all types of consumer items, ranging from microwave popcorn bags and rain jackets to dental floss, guitar strings and carpets.

The compounds don’t break down in the environment over time, thus the “forever chemical” moniker.

As the use of PFAS has spread, people have been exposed to them through food, clothing and even indoor air, but the chemicals are most notorious for contaminating groundwater aquifers all across the country, often through the application of firefighting foam, including in places in Rhode Island.

But it’s only been in recent years that public knowledge has spread about the dangers.

The first tests for the contaminants in drinking water systems in Rhode Island weren’t conducted until 2017. At the time, there was no state law on the books regulating their concentrations, and the federal government only advised that levels not exceed 70 parts per trillion.

During those tests, which were completed in 2019, 38 of 87 water systems showed the presence of at least one of eight types of PFAS

chemicals. They included the well at the Wilbur & McMahon Schools, where total levels were found at 29 ppt.

Last year, in tests for six of the compounds, levels at the school came back at 12 ppt.

While the recent result is within the cap of 20 ppt for six of the most common PFAS compounds that was enacted by the Rhode Island General Assembly in 2022, it exceeds the standard that was adopted by the EPA two years later.

It’s unclear how the well at the school was contaminated. It could have come from stormwater runoff, said Jarrod Yoder, an engineer designing the new filtration system. It could be related to fertilizer usage in the watershed. It could have come from a few hundred feet away or from miles away.

Pinpointing a single source is impossible, because the chemicals are so widespread in the environment.

“It’s everywhere essentially,” said Yoder, a senior consultant with Boston-based Haley & Aldrich.

Because the town isn’t able to stop the contamination, it had to filter the chemicals out of its water supply.

PFAS funding preserved despite other federal cuts

That’s where the infrastructure bank came in. As court cases against manufacturers of the chemicals play out, water systems are largely

relying on federal funds to pay for treatment systems that can range from a few hundred thousand dollars to many millions.

Rhode Island has gotten about $50 million from the federal government for PFAS remediation, according to the bank, which is working with the state Department of Health to allocate the funds.

The bank has so far awarded $15.8 million in grants, including awards to North Scituate Elementary School, Capt. Isaac Paine Elementary School in Foster, Charlestown Elementary School, West Glocester Elementary School and Wilbur & McMahon Schools. The money is especially timely for Little Compton, which is going through financial struggles.

The state still has about $9.5 million to allocate for PFAS remediation this fiscal year. While the Trump administration has rescinded a host of other federal grants or canceled funding programs altogether, the PFAS funds that were approved by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act have so far gone untouched.

“We’ve been fortunate in that none of our funding has been clawed back,” Fazioli said.

But the new administration hasn’t entirely left alone the previous government’s regulations on the chemicals. In May, the EPA announced a proposal to partially roll back the Biden-era rules and push off enforcement from 2029 until 2031.

Potential changes to the federal rules aren’t having any bearing on what Little Compton is doing. The town is moving forward with plans for its filtration system, with designs almost finished.

If all goes well, the new system could be up and running sometime in the first few months of 2026, said Little Compton Schools Superintendent Laurie Dias-Mitchell.

While it won’t be the first system in the state to clean up its water after discovering PFAS contamination – the University of Rhode Island took that honor last November with the completion of a large facility on its Kingston campus – Little Compton is at the head of the chasing pack.

“They’re furthest along,” said Aaron Qureshi, who oversees funding for emerging contaminants at the infrastructure bank.

Other water systems will have to follow Little Compton’s lead

Because of the ever-changing regulatory landscape and ongoing testing, it’s still a little uncertain how many water systems in Rhode Island will have to address PFAS contamination.

What’s known is that a dozen systems tested higher than the state standard and were required to sign a consent agreement with the health department to take care of the problem.

The list includes two larger suppliers − URI and the Quonset Development Corp. – but most are smaller and include several schools, as well as the Coventry National Guard facilities and Wood River Health Services in Hopkinton.

Another 13 to 18 detected some level of PFAS and may still need to come into compliance with the EPA rule, according to the health department. Again, the majority are systems with smaller numbers of users. Nationwide, new data posted by the EPA confirm that PFAS has been found in drinking water serving more than 172 million Americans, according to the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

On a recent tour she gave to officials from the infrastructure bank and the health department, Dias-Mitchell showed where the new ion-exchange filtration system will be installed inside the Wilbur & McMahon building.

It’ll be more compact than what URI built and probably more applicable to other water suppliers in the state.

“This is a smaller system,” said Ann Battersby, a senior environmental scientist with the health department. “A lot of other systems could do this.”