BOXFORD - Some Ipswich Road residents who live near the town center are not fazed that employees of Town Hall, the Department of Public Works and the police station have been asked to drink bottled water because a treatment system failed to remove arsenic from a town well.
No such public treatment facility exists for private homeowners, who must go it alone when it comes to dealing with the contaminant.
"I have (my well) tested periodically," homeowner Wendell Weyland of 309 Ipswich Road said. "I've lived here for 50 years, and I'm still kicking."
Trace amounts of arsenic, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers a known human carcinogen, turned up in Town Hall's well in recent weeks, town officials said lab tests showed.
The town traced the problem to a water treatment system that was not functioning properly.
Officials say they have always known there were small amounts of arsenic in the water, but new federal guidelines required Boxford to install an arsenic treatment system to a filtration plant in the basement of the police station in late 2005.
One well feeds the police station, Town Hall and the DPW.
The well was drilled a decade ago with the coming of a new police station, which was built five years ago. It has the capacity to feed the new Town Hall, which opened two years ago.
"Basically, we've always had arsenic in our raw water, and it has been below federal and state standards until January 2006 when they lowered the standards," Town Administrator Alan Benson said.
The arsenic occurs naturally in bedrock. Benson ruled out the former landfill off Spofford Road as a source since it sits upstream of Town Hall.
"Arsenic occurs naturally in town," said Board of Health member Dick Taylor, who said he is satisfied with the way the town is handling things.
Meanwhile, Boxford does not test for arsenic in private wells, Taylor said, because of the potential liability. The problem affects people in the center of town that rely on bedrock wells.
Residents should be concerned about arsenic and test their water periodically, Taylor said.
Some people are heeding the warning.
"It is a concern," said Tom Silva, an operations manager who lives at 306 Ipswich Road. "We haven't tested our water for a couple of years, but hearing this, we are going to test our water very shortly once we get through the holidays."
Stephanie Hatch of 314 Ipswich Road said she is not worried about the water at Town Hall or in her home.
"No, I'm not concerned because it does comply with what the standard was before," Hatch, a 40-year resident, said. Like others, she was more concerned about the iron and manganese content of the water.
Wells, she said, do not behave like storage tanks, and water from her well or other residents' wells might come from a different vein than Town Hall's. And the quantities the town is testing for are slight, she said.
She also did not want to start a panic in the area.
"Mention all your neighbors are scared, and you have a full rout," Hatch said.
"This isn't like new news," Joyce Ricklefs of 282 Ipswich Road said. "And people all around here in different parts of the area have had arsenic in the water and have had it for years, and until the government changed the regulations, no one was concerned about it."
Ricklefs, a 22-year resident who served on the former Town Hall Building Committee, has had her water tested at times, but mostly to check iron, not arsenic, levels.
"Sometimes there is a tiny, tiny bit of it," Ricklefs said of arsenic in the water. "Sometimes there is none at all."
The "do not drink" order affects visitors to Town Hall, its dozen employees, seven employees at the Department of Public Works at 7B Spofford Road and 28 police officers, dispatchers and staff that work at the station at 285 Ipswich Road.
The station has historically paid for bottled water, police Chief Gordon Russell said.
"This is something we were doing right along," Russell said. The bottled water was being paid for by the Police Relief Association, but Gordon said he plans to bill the town while the station's taps are off-limits.
"The way we look at it, why take chances?" Gordon asked.
When the well for the police station was first installed, the water was treated for iron and manganese, but not arsenic, officials said.
The water tested for arsenic at 25 parts per billion, well below the former standard set by the state and federal government at 50 parts per billion.
One part per billion compares to 1 cent in $10 million.
Since Jan. 1, the EPA required water to be treated when it tests higher than 10 parts per billion for arsenic.
Benson said the town's water operator, engineering firm and the state Department of Environmental Protection are working to figure out why the treatment plant stopped doing its job.
"We are going to stay on bottled water because we don't know why it wasn't working," Benson said.
What is arsenic?
It's found in rocks, dirt, water, air, plants and animals, more so in groundwater than surface water.
It's used as a wood preservative, in paints, dyes, metals, drugs, soaps and semi-conductors.
Fertilizers and animal feed operations also generate high levels.
Public and private wells can lower water levels and release it from rock formations.
The EPA's standard is 10 parts per billion.
Long-term exposure to it is linked to bladder, lung, skin, kidney, nasal, liver and prostrate cancer.
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
