EAST HAMPTON, NY — East Hampton Town has issued an updated drinking-water advisory as state and county agencies continue investigating PFAS contamination near the Suffolk County Water Authority’s Buckskill Road wellfield.
The Town’s latest update, revised September 21, says PFPrA, an ultra-short-chain PFAS compound, was detected in four SCWA public-water wells earlier this year. Three of those wells were removed from service, while the fourth is restricted to emergency use only. The Town says the water currently being delivered to SCWA customers continues to meet public drinking-water standards.
According to the Town, the affected wells had supplied roughly 7% of the water provided to customers in the area. SCWA is now supplying customers from other unaffected public-water wells.
The ongoing investigation has increasingly focused on the 2023 fire at the East Hampton Energy Storage Center. In a September community update, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said its preliminary analysis points to the facility’s use of Novec 1230 fire-suppression material in combination with water during the fire response as the likely source of the PFPrA contamination. DEC said the evidence does not currently point to the battery materials themselves as the source.
DEC has detected PFPrA at concentrations as high as 10,000 parts per billion in groundwater and 600 parts per billion in soil at the battery-storage property, according to the Town’s summary of the state investigation.
Suffolk County Department of Health Services is also testing private wells in the surrounding area. The Town says testing conducted so far has not found contamination above New York State drinking-water standards or the state health department’s 3-parts-per-billion PFPrA screening level in the private wells sampled.
The investigation is not limited to PFPrA. County groundwater testing also detected PFOS and other PFAS compounds, and state and county agencies are continuing to investigate those sources. No source for the PFOS detections has yet been identified.
East Hampton Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez has called for continued coordination among the Town, NYSDEC, state health officials, Suffolk County and SCWA. The Town has also demanded that the battery-storage operator remove remaining Novec 1230 material from its East Hampton and Montauk facilities.
Residents with private wells who believe they may be within the affected area can contact the Suffolk County Bureau of Drinking Water at 631-852-5810. SCWA customers with water-quality questions can call 631-698-9500.