New Treatment Plant Aims To Protect Chatham’s Drinking Water; Open House at Training Field Rd. Facility Saturday

 CHATHAM – In a newly built, nondescript brick building off Training Field Road, final preparations are underway to start an operation that will help keep the town’s drinking water supply safe.

 The state-of-the-art water treatment plant will remove iron and manganese and PFAS, the so-called forever chemical, from the groundwater pumped from town wells 5 and 8. Once it goes on line in the coming weeks, the plant will have the capacity to treat up to 1.44 million gallons of water per day.

 An open house and ribbon cutting ceremony will be held at the new plant at 128 Training Field Road on Saturday, May 16, from 10 a.m. to noon. The public will have the opportunity to tour the new facility and how it removes contaminants from the groundwater to provide clean, drinkable water to residents.

 Voters approved borrowing $19.8 million at the 2023 annual town meeting to fund the plant. Zero-interest financing $18,139,000 came through the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust. The final cost may be slightly under that, but since the work is not yet complete an exact figure isn’t available, said Public Works Director Rob Faley.

 PFAS levels higher than the 20 parts per trillion maximum allowed under state regulations was first detected in the Training Field wells in 2021. The wells were shut down and funds were approved for what was initially a temporary treatment system to remove the chemicals so that the wells could be used. It was eventually determined that a permanent treatment facility was necessary to remove PFAS and iron and manganese, which can cause discoloration and mineral deposits in pipes.

 That temporary treatment vessel initially used with the wells has been incorporated into the new treatment plant, Faley said. The facility uses four of the granular activated carbon filtration vessels, each capable of filtering 1,000 gallons a minute. Two are used at a time, which provides “some redundancy,” he said, and also allows for backwashing of the vessels, necessary periodically when the carbon filters become saturated. 

It takes about 10 minutes for water to run through one of the filters. The vessels reduce PFAS levels to the point where they are not detectable, Faley said. That’s important, since maximum levels lower than the state are scheduled to be implemented by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Should one of the huge vessels need to be replaced, there is a translucent door on one end of the building that can be opened and also provides natural light to the space.

The plant also includes four greensand filter vessels that remove iron and manganese. “That’s the first level of treatment,” Faley said. 

Also included in the new facility is a water testing lab, which will mostly be used to test the raw well water for bacteria contamination. Testing for PFAS, iron and manganese and other contaminants is done by an outside lab.

Operations are controlled by a supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA, computer system, which allows water department contractor Veolia to monitor the facility remotely. “But there’s still human supervision,” Faley noted.

The state Department of Environmental Protection was expected to inspect the new plant Thursday, Faley said. 

“If all goes well, we should be able to put water [from the plant] in Chatham households by Memorial Day,” he said.

Chatham joins several Cape towns that have built treatment facilities to remove PFAS. That’s going to become more common as the chemicals continue to be detected in municipal water systems, said Faley.

“There’s no way around it,” he said, adding that PFAS sources are notoriously difficult to trace. Traces well below the maximum levels have shown up in other town wells, but it’s impossible to say whether that was just one-time readings or will recur, potentially requiring additional treatment.

 The new facility should have a lifespan of at least 50 years, he said.

 Faley warned that some finishing touches still need to be made at the facility. The floors, for instance, are unfinished; it was decided to wait to finish them until after the open house, he said.

 Also Saturday, the sewage treatment plant off Sam Ryder Road will also host an open house from 10 a.m. to noon.