With a $450,000 grant from the Washington Department of Ecology, an Eastern Washington University professor and his team of student researchers are leading a project to measure the spread of potentially harmful polyfluoroalkyl substances — the “forever chemicals” more commonly known as PFAS — to sources of drinking water on the West Plains.
The long-lasting chemicals, developed in the 1940s to repel oil and water while resisting heat, were for decades used in firefighting foam used at Fairchild Air Force Base and Spokane International Airport.
The funding is covering the cost of testing private and public wells, along with other water sources, for PFAS concentrations, says Chad Pritchard, the EWU professor of geosciences who serves as the grant’s principal investigator. It has also helped the team to acquire state-of-the art groundwater modeling software, which students are using to create 3-D water flow maps, to fund travel for students who are assisting with testing, and to cover other expenses.
“If you go to most universities, these kinds of research projects would be given to master’s or PhD students,” says Pritchard. “But here, we just kind of push our students to the next level as undergraduates. And that’s why they get hired and have great futures.”
The project is developing a wealth of hands-on skills for students as they collaborate across agencies that include the DOE, Washington Department of Health, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, Spokane Regional Health District, West Plains Water Coalition, local municipalities and other stakeholder groups.
At the same time, the research is helping to provide a path to safe drinking water — and potentially federal clean-up funds — for residents of impacted properties.
Terri Cooper is the mayor of Medical Lake, one of the communities potentially at risk for PFAS contamination. Medical Lake is the municipality administering the grant funding and Cooper says she is pleased with the partnership with EWU, calling it a win-win for students and the community.
“To have this funded project to research an expanded area is invaluable to me as mayor, and also to the community, in that we will understand the extent of the environmental impact this has had,” Mayor Cooper says.
Current scientific research, according to the EPA, suggests that exposure to various PFAS chemicals can lead to adverse health outcomes, including birth defects, cancer, kidney disease, and a host of other issues. The agency cautions, however, that “research is still ongoing” to determine how different levels of exposure may affect human and animal health.
Contamination in the West Plains first came to light in 2017, when local media reported that PFAS chemicals from firefighting foam had potentially leached into the aquifer that provides Airway Heights, a city of 11,000, with its water supply.
After the story broke, Airway Heights immediately tested its three municipal wells for contaminants. When each of them showed high levels of PFAS chemicals, the city took all three offline, providing bottled drinking water to residents, later purchasing water from the city of Spokane.
Area residents served by an estimated 1,400 private wells, however, were not included in the testing, leaving most with no idea whether their own water was safe for their families, pets and farm animals.
“We’re learning about this in the news, and everybody is like, ‘Well I’m in this area and I don’t know if I have PFAS in my well. I don’t know if I’m drinking this stuff that’s like horrible for my liver,’” recalls Pritchard, who lives in Medical Lake.
After Pritchard’s grant was approved, his team, which includes paid student research assistants as well as undergraduates enrolled in upper-level geosciences courses, got to work.
So far, they’ve collected samples from more than 140 private wells — along with water from local lakes, rivers and streams — and submitted them for testing. The grant covers testing fees, which typically run $375-450 each, costs that some households might not otherwise be able to afford.
Pritchard and his team were pleased to discover that most wells tested within state limits, with state action levels for PFAS concentrations of less than 10 parts per trillion. However, properties located closer to known sources of contamination tested as high as 100 parts per trillion, far above levels deemed safe.
After each test, the EWU team followed up with those who had high concentrations of PFAS to help them gain access to government-funded resources for drinking water deliveries or water-filtration systems. That “brought a lot of people peace,” Pritchard says.
Jerusha Hampson is a member of Pritchard’s research group. The 24-year-old geosciences major says the project has helped her gain hands-on experience as a paid research assistant while making a difference in her own community.
“It’s just really cool to meet people across the West Plains, where I grew up, to just talk to them and listen to their experiences and what it has been like for them,” Hampson says. “It has been super rewarding.”
Hampson says the experience she’s gained in fieldwork, organizing, and graphically representing data has been invaluable. So has her work in coordinating with, and presenting findings to, a range of government agencies and concerned citizen groups, she says. All of it will come in handy as she considers a career in regulatory work, she adds.
In the meantime, Pritchard says his team’s findings will soon be combined with federal EPA data from the sampling of 400 additional wells in the area, as well any data the U.S. Department of Defense might share from their work at Fairchild. A report on these combined results is expected to be released in June.
Pritchard is routinely tapped for questions about PFAS contamination by journalists, community members and collaborating agencies. His students routinely present their research findings at community meetings, participate in collaborative discussions, and even provide media interviews. Three of his students are preparing give presentations at a groundwater conference in Spokane this spring.
Erin Toulou ’22, is a PFAS project alumnus who took on the initial 3-D groundwater mapping as a junior at EWU. Toulou was the first member of Pritchard’s team to receive financial support via the Clawson-Youngs Environmental Studies Award from the Bill Young Environmental Studies Endowment.
The research stipend that helped her to attend multiple conferences and give presentations to groups of up to 300 stakeholders. (Read about Toulou’s early project and the award on InsideEWU.)
The networking, she says, “got my name out there so employers and different grad schools were coming up to me and asking about my future plans, which got me thinking ahead.”
Her work with Pritchard not only sparked her interest in hydrology, Toulou says, it helped open the door to a full scholarship — with a paid teaching assistantship — in a hydrologic sciences master’s program at Boise State University.
“I think the main takeaway is I learned how to public speak and how to write. I learned how to use data and communicate it to a larger audience,” says Toulou.
For her part, Cooper, Medical Lake’s mayor, says Pritchard and student researchers, such as Toulou and Hampson have garnered positive feedback from members of her community. She looks forward to the final report, which will provide a larger picture, and vital information, for the community.
“There wouldn’t have been a project without EWU,” Cooper says. “It wouldn’t have happened.”
