The Loudoun County Health Department has offered bottled water to 22 Broad Run Farms homeowners with trichloroethylene (TCE) in their wells.
The state Department of Environmental Quality pledged two weeks ago to pay for whole house filtration systems, estimating it would take about a month to put them in place. In a letter sent to residents last week, Health Director David Goodfriend said instillation could take four months or longer. He offered the water until the filtration systems are ready, based on a recommendation by the Supervisors' Public Safety Committee.
THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT has tested 67 wells in the community and found 22 with TCE. The carcinogen is a chemical used to remove grease from metal parts. Drinking water with small amounts of TCE over long periods of time can cause liver and kidney damage, impaired immune system function and impaired fetal development in pregnant women, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said.
The source may be the Hidden Lane Landfill, which operated without a county permit from 1971 to 1984, and repeatedly violated restrictions on what was allowed to be dumped at the site, Office of Waste Management records show. County and state officials say they cannot identify everything that was placed in the ground. The Environmental Quality Department has committed to testing soon.
Committee members, Bruce Tulloch (Potomac), Scott York (I-At Large) and James Clem (R-Leesburg) recommended bottled water to give residents a "needed peace of mind," Goodfriend wrote in his letter. He was not overly concerned about the effects of the carcinogen on the residents, despite their being able to breathe it in when bathing or showering. "We do not believe that an additional few months of exposure to contaminated water will pose a health hazard to your family," he wrote.
DENISE MAZZAN, a resident who had a whole house filtration installed in April when the Health Department first advised residents to take the action, received a letter advising her that the state has not found a mechanism to reimburse her for the system. She said she was "livid."
She said she has three children and she was not about to wait until someone figured out who would pay for it. She is a breast cancer survivor and wonders whether the TCE could have caused the disease. "We could not bathe in it. We could not shower in it. We could not cook with it. We could not drink it," she said, her voice rising and visibly upset.
She was on the phone last Thursday, calling politicians, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the county Health Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Tulloch, vice chairman of the Board of Supervisors, pledged to help her. "We asked the state to find a way to refund her money," he said.
Jeffrey Steers, regional director of the Northern Regional Office of the Department of Environmental Quality, said in a telephone interview that the state could not provide reimbursement based on the "initial read," but he is still trying to find a method. The guidelines of the fund being used to finance the filtration system does not apply to her circumstance.
TULLOCH SAID he would bring the issue to the Board of Supervisors and ask it to find money in the county budget for Mazzan. Then he would push for legislation to ensure the county received reimbursement.
"It's only the right thing to do," he said. "I'm going to ask the county to step up."
Goodfriend said his department has not kept tally of how many other residents have already installed filtration systems. Mazzan said she knows of only one resident, who put a system in place despite having a contaminant-free well. Goodfriend has recommended residents in the effected area install filtration systems, even if they don't have TCE in their wells. He said he could not guarantee that the wells would remain free of pollutants a year from now.
Residents interested in receiving the bottled water were asked to sign a form. It contains a qualifier: "I understand that drinking bottled water will not completely prevent my exposure to TCE, such as through showering."