The clock is ticking for the City of Vero Beach, which has just five years to come up with a way to remove harmful so-called “forever chemicals” from its drinking water. As a first step to meet that deadline, the city council on Feb. 24 approved a quarter of a million dollars for a study to evaluate two water filtration methods and figure out which method will be most cost-effective in the long run. Early estimates place the initial cost of the systems between $14.3 million and $16.2 million, but the study will provide more accurate numbers, council members were told. Vero Beach 32963 reported in January that the EPA found 8.4 parts per trillion of the forever chemical perfluorooctane sulfonate in city water – more than twice EPA’s acceptable maximum level of 4.0 parts per trillion. The substance is one of a group of man-made chemicals known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) used for decades in nonstick and water-resistant products, including nonstick cookware, food packaging, stain resistant fabrics, fire-fighting foam, and even makeup. Despite being widely used for over 80 years, it wasn’t until 1999 that the EPA determined the chemicals were toxic and linked to a host of health issues, including immune system ailments, developmental delays and cancer. Because of their strong carbon-fluorine bonds, they resist breaking down in the environment, as well as in the human body. While the EPA issued health advisories as early as 2006, it didn’t finalize official, legally enforceable drinking water standards for six of the compounds until April 2024, a number reduced to two by the current administration. The original deadline for reducing the presence of these chemical compounds in drinking water to acceptable limits was 2029, but the deadline has been pushed back to April 2031. “We will meet that deadline,” Rob Bolton, the city’s water and sewer director, told city council members on Feb. 24. The study will evaluate two different methods for treating water drawn from the city’s surficial aquifer wells, which are the ones that are contaminated. The first method is to treat the water with granulated activated carbon, which absorbs organic contaminants and reduces the harmful chemicals. The filters require periodic backwashing, and when the carbon is no longer activated it needs to be disposed of properly and replaced with new carbon, Bolton said. The second method evaluated by the study is ion exchange, a process that removes contaminants by swapping them for harmless ions using specialized resin beads. When the resin becomes saturated with contaminants, it must be regenerated by flushing it with a brine solution. Both systems have their pros and cons, Bolton told city council members, but a third option might be better. Reverse osmosis is more expensive than carbon filtration or ion exchange, but the city may ultimately decide to choose that method, he said. The pilot study will establish costs of switching over from lime softening to one of these systems and will estimate the recurring operating costs, he said. The actual testing will take about four months, while data analysis and finalizing the report are expected to take another six months. At that rate, a report should be ready early next year, setting the stage for the city to take action. The pilot study contractor is CHA Consulting of Winter Spring, Fla. CHA’s proposal also includes an estimate of construction costs for each method. Converting to a granulated activated carbon treatment system is estimated to cost around $14.3 million, while the cost to switch to an ion exchange system would cost around $16.2 million, the proposal estimates. Converting everything to a reverse osmosis treatment process is estimated to cost $28 million for construction, Bolton said. By the time the city begins construction, all the estimates are sure to go up, he added. While some municipalities chose to join in class action suits against chemical manufacturers 3M and Dupont, the companies responsible for creating PFAS, Vero Beach chose not to, retaining the option to sue the companies directly for damages instead, Bolton said. 3M, which produced a wide variety of products containing PFAS, such as Scotchgard and fire-fighting foams, paid out over $10 billion in settlements in 2023 to fund water filtration improvements for municipalities. Dupont, which manufactured PFAS-laden products such as Teflon and other nonstick substances, paid out over $1 billion in settlements in 2024. Other municipalities retained the option to sue the companies directly, as Vero Beach did, believing they will get higher settlement payouts, Bolton explained. “Even if we go to all RO, we will have this study to show the minimum costs that we could try to recoup in a lawsuit,” Bolton told council members. High levels of forever chemicals were found in water drawn from the city’s 21 surficial wells – so named because they draw water from aquifers 80 to 100 feet deep that contain groundwater near the surface that is recharged by rain. These wells are located on city property near the Vero Beach Regional Airport. Just north of the airport property is the site of an unlined, unregulated landfill where waste was dumped during the 1950s and 1960s. Piper Aircraft also disposed of chemical waste nearby. Firefighters often trained at the outer edge of the airport, learning how to douse airplane fires with the firefighting foam laden with PFAS, which also seeped into the groundwater. The landfill was closed in 1977 after the county created the current landfill off 14th Avenue SW. The area underwent extensive cleanup under the 1980 federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, also known as the Superfund program. The EPA gave the site a clean bill of health in 2017. Water from these shallow wells is treated with a process called lime softening. Lime is added to the water, which raises its pH level and forms minerals that settle and are filtered out along with other contaminants. The city’s lime softening plant treats about 3 million gallons per day. It is this water that will require improved purification, Bolton said. Five other city wells draw water from the deeper Floridan aquifer, a massive system located from 100 feet to over 1,000 feet below the surface. Virtually no PFAS have been found in this water, which is treated by reverse osmosis, a highly effective process that uses semi-permeable membranes to remove 99 percent of most contaminants. The city’s reverse osmosis plant treats approximately 3.3 million gallons per day, and Bolton said the system could be expanded to treat the contaminated water without building a new facility. Currently, treated water from the surficial aquifer and the Floridan aquifer are blended together before being piped into homes and businesses, Bolton said. The city has money in its budget to drill additional wells into the Floridan aquifer, which will result in a higher percentage mixed with surficial aquifer water, bringing the total level of PFAS lower, Bolton said. There is room in the reverse osmosis facility to expand filtration without needing to construct a new building, resulting in significant savings on construction costs, he said.