MidlandToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a letter entitled 'Council happy on decreased TCE in sealed Penetanguishene wells', published July 16.
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(A link was provided to a Connecticut Department of Public Health fact sheet in PDF format entitled “What You Need To Know About: Trichloroethylene in Private Well Water” dated August 2015)
Although 5 ug/L (micrograms per litre) is the stated safe level for TCE, you can see in the (linked) report from the US state of Connecticut:
"The US EPA has established a drinking water standard called the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 5 ug/L for TCE. Public water supplies must meet MCLs. The TCE MCL was set in the 1980s and is outdated. US EPA has indicated that it is looking to update this drinking water target. CT DPH has set an Action Level for TCE of 1 ug/L based upon the most recent evidence of TCE health effects. If your well water has TCE contamination at levels greater than 1 ug/L you should treat the water to remove TCE."
Hopefully the decision to deem the water as drinkable is based on the more conservative 1 ug/L rather than 5.
I am just a lay person in this area, but when we looked at buying a house in the path of the toxic plume from the Pauze dump site, this lower recommended level affected our thoughts, and presumably would influence the thinking of others too.
Terry Cumming
Newmarket
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