SUGARLOAF:

Residents put on notice about water contamination.

Some Sugarloaf residents are under an advisory to avoid using their well water until further testing is completed by the Sugarloaf Fire Protection District after one of its wells showed the presence of perfluorinated compounds far above federal standards for what is safe in its water.

Fire district board members, joined by officials from the county and state health departments, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, will be on hand Tuesday at Sugarloaf Station 2, to brief concerned area residents on the current status of water well safety in the area.

The fire protection district installed well and septic systems in 2017 at its Station 1 and Station 2 in 2017, and on April 1, sampled the water in the well at Station 1 for PFCS.

Water from the wells at both stations have now tested positive for per flu oro oct anaic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulphate (PFOS) — commonly known as PFCS — above the EPA advisory level of 70 parts per trillion.

John Winchester, a volunteer firefighter for the district, wrote in an email that at Station 1 the level of PFOA there was 79 parts per trillion, and the level of PFOS was 950 parts per trillion, and combining the two yields a level 14.7 times the EPA health advisory.

A second sampling there May 10 also produced high levels.

Winchester wrote the Station 2 well water has been tested once, on May 10, and that the levels exceeded the EPA standards, although not as significantly as at Station 1.

This is the first time that PFCS have been found in Colorado groundwater outside the Security-fountain-widefield area in El Paso County, according to Kristy Richardson, an environmental toxicologist for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Its presence there has been linked to the use of a firefighting foam known as AFFF, or aqueous film forming foam, once used at nearby Peterson Air Force Base.

That foam, known to firefighters as a “Class B firefighting foam,” was used by Sugarloaf from 1992 to 1997, according to Winchester.