More than a generation after initially discovering a potentially hazardous substance at the site of a former landfill in Douglass Township, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has identified contaminated groundwater in the surrounding area.

            Last week, representatives from the agency provided a public update on their work.

            Colin Wade, an environmental protection specialist with the DEP, told an audience that eight filter systems have been installed at residences where the amount of per- and polyfluorinated substances was found to have exceeded Pennsylvania's Drinking Water Standards. He identified several contaminated wells on Diehl Drive.

            The DEP will continue to test drinking water, according to Wade. During the Boyertown Landfill HCSA Site meeting on June 21 inside the Gilbertsville Fire and Rescue Building's engine room, the project officer invited any resident to have the agency test their private well for PFAS.

            DEP officials suspect the chemicals used to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water and found in fire-fighting foam originated from the landfill, which closed in 1986. Since 2000 the agency has performed actions to mitigate acute issues at the landfill under the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act, according to Wade. He said the agency installed a leachate interceptor trench and conducted groundwater sampling.

            In the spring of 2019, the sampling discovered the PFAS in the leachate and surface water at the landfill. In the fall, the DEP discovered PFAS in residential wells surrounding the landfill.

            In the fall of 2020, the agency detected PFAS in the groundwater at the landfill and in additional residential wells. Last month additional sampling detected PFAS in more residential wells, according to information included in Wade's presentation.

            Human health effects from exposure to low environmental levels of PFAS are uncertain, according to a fact sheet posted by the U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention. It states that studies of laboratory animals given large amounts of PFAS indicate that some PFAS may affect growth and development. In addition, these animal studies indicate PFAS may affect reproduction, thyroid function, the immune system, and injure the liver. Epidemiologic studies on PFAS exposure evaluated several health effects.

            More than 40 wells have been tested for PFAS, according to Wade. A map displayed inside the engine room identifies most of them on three parallel roads; Virmay Drive, Yoder Avenue and Diehl Drive which intersect with Gilbertsville Road. Nine wells along Jackson Road, 11 on Yoder Avenue and nine on Deihl Drive, as well as six others on the other side of Merkel Road near the intersection with Yoder Avenue and five wells along Gilbertsville.

            All but eight wells showed traces of PFAS or PFOS that ended up below the maximum contaminant levels allowed for users. At the others, including five homes along Diehl Drive DEP officials have begun the installation of a point of entry treatment system that consists of two 12-inch carbon tanks, a sediment filter, water-meter pressure gauge, and sampling ports.

            Wade described the whole house filtration system as an immediate response. He suggested further that a final solution could include the implementation of a water line.

            A DEP attorney told an audience member that the agency has the legal authority to fence in the former landfill property.

            According to Gina Thomas, the site has been on the radar of the DEP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and they are working together to come up with solutions for this and other issues with the 24.39-acre property.

            "This is not the end of the story," she said.

            Thomas told the audience that the agency is working with the family of property owner Warren Frame in "a limited way" to reach a solution. According to the lawyer, Frame -- who has a Birdsboro home address -- is very ill and in a nursing home.

            "In terms of his estate planning, what happens with the site will have to be determined," Thomas said.