PFAS found near Edmonds school sparks concerns about wells

EDMONDS — The state Department of Ecology is investigating contamination near Madrona K-8 School, after a consulting firm found so-called “forever chemicals” in the school’s stormwater management system.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are found in hundreds of products: carpets, paints and firefighting foams, among others. Historically, manufacturers used PFAS because they resist grease, oil, water and heat. They are aptly called forever chemicals because they take centuries to break down.

Exposure to drinking water contaminated with PFAS may cause certain cancers and other serious health effects.

Ecology has not obtained data yet on Madrona’s groundwater, so it is unclear if the contamination exceeds state cleanup standards. The chemicals wouldn’t affect the school’s drinking water.

But in an interview last week, Taine Wilton, director of capital projects for the Edmonds School District, said the stormwater doesn’t violate any state standards or action levels for PFAS.

Environmental activists and leadership at the Olympic View Water and Sewer District, however, are concerned these chemicals will seep into the Deer Creek aquifer that supplies drinking water to homes in Edmonds, Woodway and parts of unincorporated Snohomish County.

Madrona’s stormwater system uses underground injection control wells — structures that allow fluids to flow into the ground, typically under the force of gravity.

Despite the name of the wells, “we’re not injecting anything,” Wilton said.

The wells are layered with sand and rock to filter out pollutants. After passing through a metal screen at the bottom, the water disperses into the ground.

The Deer Creek aquifer is like “an underground river” beneath the school property, Wilton said. The injection wells hover 40 to 50 feet above the aquifer, with layers of silt in between.

“I think we’ve gone above and beyond protecting the sand layers,” Wilton said.

Even still, not all water treatment systems can effectively filter out PFAS.

Prior to installing the injection wells, the Edmonds School District didn’t actively treat stormwater at Madrona. During rain storms, runoff would flow over a nearby bluff and into the ground, Wilton said.

In the summer of 2018, as staff finalized construction on Madrona’s new building, the Edmonds School District planned to install the injection wells for additional stormwater treatment.

At the same time, Olympic View staff raised concerns about the injection wells. The company worried polluted runoff from roofs, sidewalks and access roads would leak into the Deer Creek aquifer, said Lynne Danielson, then the general manager of the water district.

“The concern … is that the (underground injection wells) will actually dump stormwater into the aquifer,” said Bob Danson, current general manager at the water district.

The school district and the city of Edmonds then agreed the new school wouldn’t open until they addressed Olympic View’s concerns. By the fall of 2018, Olympic View promised to supply water to Madrona as long as the school district tested the school’s stormwater annually.

Testing for PFAS

The school district had not initially planned to test for PFAS when it recruited Seattle-based consulting firm, Shannon & Wilson, to conduct annual stormwater testing on the property.

But in 2022, Olympic View collected stormwater samples at Madrona as part of a larger effort to test for PFAS throughout the water district, Danson said.

Olympic View did not ask the school district for permission to sample the water, but Danson said staff only sampled in publicly accessible areas on the school property.

The water district’s samples showed one of Madrona’s storm drain catch basins had about 32 parts per trillion of one of the forever chemicals, PFOA, and almost 19 parts per trillion of another compound, PFOS.

Shannon & Wilson staff weren’t able to verify Olympic View’s samples, so last fall, the consulting firm tested the same storm drain catch basin. The follow-up results still showed PFAS contamination, though at 22 parts per trillion for PFOA and about 8 parts per trillion for PFOS.

The report, Danson argued, validates Olympic View’s initial concerns about Madrona School’s stormwater management system back in 2018.

On July 21, Joe Scordino, a retired biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, asked Ecology if it was investigating PFAS contamination at Madrona.

Ecology’s Toxics Cleanup Program opened an investigation into the situation after receiving the tip, spokesperson Cheryl Ann Bishop wrote in an email.

Wilton, of the school district, said she and representatives from Shannon & Wilson notified a hydrogeologist from Ecology about the PFAS test results in May. The hydrogeologist didn’t advise the school district to take any action regarding the contamination, district spokesperson Curtis Campbell wrote in an email.

After receiving a tip about known or suspected contamination, Ecology staff have to conduct an initial investigation of the site within 90 to 180 days, Bishop said. The department then decides whether to add the location to its contaminated sites list.

Four sites in Snohomish County are listed as suspected to be contaminated with PFAS, including near Paine Field and Naval Station Everett.

“The data is very limited,” Bishop said about Shannon & Wilson’s report. “We don’t generally put sites on the list automatically.”

‘No one was listening’

A new group, made up of Edmonds residents, is worried a new ordinance could further jeopardize water quality in the Deer Creek aquifer.

Scordino helped form the Edmonds Environmental Council in early July.

“A lot of us felt we were talking until we were blue in the face and no one was listening,” Scordino said. “We said it’s time to form a group, get some funding, get legal assistance and start taking (the city) to task.”

For the group’s first action, members appealed to the state’s Growth Management Hearings Board, regarding a City Council ordinance passed in May. The ordinance allows the city of Edmonds to potentially install more underground injection control wells within the Deer Creek aquifer’s critical recharge areas, or places where aquifers are particularly vulnerable to contamination.

As with the Madrona School wells, Scordino and other members of the environmental council are concerned polluted stormwater traveling through the injection wells would seep into the Deer Creek aquifer.

Olympic View staff worked with the city on the ordinance, said Danson, the water district’s general manager.

Water district staff share the environmental council’s concerns about polluted stormwater infiltrating the aquifer, he said.

But, “the city made a verbal commitment to readdress infiltration concerns in the future,” Danson said.

The city cannot comment on the use of underground injection control wells due to the ongoing appeal, city spokesperson Kelsey Foster said.

The situation at Madrona School “raises a bigger concern” about PFAS chemicals, Scordino said.

“If it’s that high there, what is it in these other areas that you’re going to allow development?” he said. “Better find out what the source is before you allow further development.”

The environmental council hopes that, through the appeal process, the city will agree not to use injection wells in critical aquifer recharge areas — finding other methods instead to treat stormwater.

A hearing on the environmental council’s appeal is scheduled for this fall.

Ta’Leah Van Sistine: 425-339-3460; taleah.vansistine@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @TaLeahRoseV