Water Committee Update

Lately a group of about 5,000 toxic chemicals called PFAS have been turning up everywhere. Just about everyone on the planet has traces of PFAS in their bodies. PFAS are used in plastics, teflon, Gore-tex, fire extinguishers, and a host of other products including artificial turf used on athletic fields. The Water Committee is concerned about plans to install an artificial turf field directly up-gradient from three of Sharon’s municipal wells along Beaver Brook. These three wells provide about 60% of Sharon's drinking water.

The drinking water situation in Easton provides a good lesson for Sharon. The attached table of PFAS detected in Easton’s seven municipal drinking water wells together with the attached map show that the cluster of three wells (#1, #2 and #8) near the two artificial turf fields (Muscato Stadium and W.B. Mason Stadium) have higher levels of PFAS than the four wells on the other side of town (#3, #5, #6, and #7).

The levels of PFAS detected in the three wells near the artificial turf fields exceed MA DEP's proposed drinking water standard of 20 ng/L (i.e. parts per trillion, or ppt), whereas the levels of PFAS in the other four wells are lower than 20 ppt.

Note that when Easton drilled a new replacement well beside their original Well #4, MA DEP required them to use a different name for the new well, even though it's practically in the same location as the old well, so they named it Well #8.