Defend Our Health has been working with community group PFAS Free Trenton (PFT) on securing community wide PFAS testing in the community. The group of Trenton residents started meeting after Trenton Elementary School reported elevated levels of the ‘forever chemicals’ in 2019. The school’s water showed levels of 33.9 parts per trillion, which is above Maine’s standard. A water filtration system has since been installed to make the water safe to drink.
After working with the select board, PFT secured the use of $20,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money allocated to the town. This money will go to the testing of 100 wells in Trenton in order to investigate whether there is a more extensive problem with PFAS water contamination in the community.
The first round of testing will include 50 households in proximity of the elementary school, the airport, and the fire station, possible hotspots of PFAS contamination, as well as a random selection of households spread throughout the community. The first round of testing took place on October 19th and 20th, with results coming back from the lab a couple of weeks after that.
