Does Water Treatment Produce Perchlorate?

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection is looking into whether the process of treating waste is creating perchlorate, the Boston Globe reported.

The department has decided to pursue this action based on the results of that located potential sources of the chemical perchlorate in the Tewksbury drinking water supply at levels above what the state considers safe, the Boston Globe reported.

The DEP’s health advisory level is 1 part per billion.

The first of two main sources of contamination is the Lowell wastewater treatment facility. This facility registered perchlorate levels at the discharge point between 18 and 21.9 parts per billion even though levels at the intake were negligible, the report stated.

The second main source is a storm water discharge area at an industrial site in  where prechlorate levels registering 52.9 parts per billion. The discharge basin feeds into an unnamed stream that drains to the Merrimack River downstream of Tewksbury's drinking-water intake pipe, according to the DEP.

Since early August, Tewksbury's perchlorate levels have averaged 2.25 parts per billion in 11 tests, the Boston Globe reported.

''We don't know much about the perchlorate chemistry in wastewater treatment plants," Environmental Department Deputee Commissioner Ed Kunse told the Globe. ''Is it coming in [at] trace levels and being concentrated, or is it being created through the treatment process?"

Source: The Boston Globe