EDMONDS — The Edmonds Environmental Council and Olympic View Water & Sewer District have raised concerns regarding revisions to the city’s Critical Areas Ordinance, warning that a delay in updating policy surrounding underground stormwater wells could cause the city drinking water to become contaminated.
In light of the concerns, the City Council delayed its Dec. 16 vote on the ordinance to hold a public hearing, which will take place 6 p.m. Tuesday at Edmonds City Hall.
The ordinance, required under the state Growth Management Act, establishes regulations to protect wetlands, streams, lakes and aquifers, preserving their natural function and value. This includes maintaining habitat for fish and wildlife, as well as protecting water quality. The state law also requires that the regulations be based on the best available science.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are found in hundreds of products, including carpets, paints, household cooking utensils and firefighting foams, among others. The chemicals take centuries to break down, bringing them the nickname “forever chemicals.”
Edmonds plans to update the policy as required by the Growth Management Act, but, according to a Dec. 16 City Council meeting, wants to hold back on the chapter covering aquifer recharge areas until mid-2026. The holdup will allow the city to conduct a study on stormwater and PFAS.
The environmental council and sewer district have urged the city not delay the update, worried that without restricting human activity near the Deer Creek aquifer — which supplies Edmonds with its drinking water — PFAS chemicals will make their way into the critical resource.
‘The science says that there’s risk there’
In the past decade, scientific studies have begun to show PFAS cause serious health effects, including certain cancers, reproductive and developmental issues and liver damage.
The environmental council and Olympic View have urged Edmonds to follow the science and swiftly restrict activities, such as building underground wells to capture stormwater, around the city’s drinking water aquifer to avoid PFAS infiltration.
“Once those contaminations reach an aquifer, they’re very difficult to remove,” Olympic View Water & Sewer District General Manager Bob Danson said. “Deer Creek aquifer is a critical area. The science says that there’s risk there, and we’re just looking for them to protect it.”
During a discussion about the ordinance at the Dec. 16 city council meeting, City Attorney Jeffrey Taraday said the regulations proposed by the council could discourage development in the area or spark possible litigation.
“There’s, to my knowledge, very little science about PFAS,” Taraday said during the meeting. “It might be difficult for us to say that a particular development is causing a certain amount of PFAS runoff, and that therefore, we are going to require that developer to pump and pipe the storm water into another location. And if you can’t make that showing, you have potential liability for a regulatory taking, so you’re in a little bit of a tight spot here.”
‘I just don’t feel like we have the knowledge’
In April 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency announced regulations on the levels of PFAS allowed to exist in drinking water, giving public water systems three years to complete initial monitoring and five years to implement solutions to reach acceptable levels.
Unlike Everett, which obtains its drinking water from Spada Lake, located outside of human development in the forests between the Mountain Loop Highway and Highway 2, the Deer Creek aquifer supplying Edmonds with drinking water is situated within city limits, closely surrounded by residential neighborhoods.
Joe Scordino, president of the Edmonds Environmental Council and retired fisheries biologist, said he is concerned that, with increased pressure to develop housing, the few houses built in the 1950s and 1960s around the aquifer could be torn down to be rebuilt as apartments.
Currently, the code allows the construction of certain types of wells in the Deer Creek aquifer area. All wells are restricted around the 228th Street Wellhead, an aquifer that is not currently used for drinking water but which Olympic View Water & Sewer District plans to use as a drinking water resource in the future.
The environmental council wants to prohibit all types of wells in the critical area so that if and when new development moves in, developers will have to construct stormwater systems to make sure water likely contaminated with PFAS is properly routed away from the underground drinking water aquifer.
“If you want to build in a particular area, and there’s no sewer pipe, you have to put in the sewer pipe. And our view is, well, what’s the difference with storm water?” Scordino said. “We found stormwater is the conveyor of these forever chemicals, so there shouldn’t be any difference saying, ‘No, you can’t just take stormwater and inject it into the ground.’”
If and when the city decides to update the aquifer chapter of the Critical Areas Ordinance to ban stormwater infiltration, the city will also need to update its stormwater regulations to stay consistent with the laws, Edmonds spokesperson Natasha Ryan said in an email. If the two sections of city law conflicted, the city would be forced to pause all development to avoid processing permits under contradicting standards.
“PFAS are already present in stormwater, and in areas without alternative conveyance or treatment systems, stormwater will ultimately migrate toward underlying aquifers,” Edmonds Senior Planner Brad Shipley said in an email. “As a result, even if development activity were significantly limited or halted in a given recharge area, PFAS-contaminated stormwater generated from existing land uses and human activity, would continue to move through the watershed and could pose risks to groundwater over time. The purpose of the ongoing study is to provide the scientific basis and recommendations needed to determine the most effective and appropriate approaches for managing stormwater and protecting groundwater in these conditions.”
Eliza Aronson: 425-339-3434; eliza.aronson@heraldnet.com; X: @ElizaAronson.
Eliza’s stories are supported by the Herald’s Environmental and Climate Reporting Fund.
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