Is Vero Beach’s water safe to drink?
Right now, there are two opinions. City officials say it is, but the Environmental Protection Agency has raised a red flag.
The question comes up because a recent EPA report shows that drinking water in the City of Vero Beach contains more than twice the acceptable levels of certain “forever chemicals,” which are linked to a host of health issues, including immune system problems, developmental effects and cancer.
These forever chemicals – which are known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) – are a large group of man-made chemicals used in nonstick and water-resistant products since the 1940s, including nonstick cookware, food packaging, stain resistant fabrics, and even in makeup.
Because of their strong carbon-fluorine bonds, they resist breaking down in the environment, as well as in the human body.
The EPA’s latest testing data shows 8.4 parts per trillion of perfluorooctane sulfonate – a type of PFAS – in Vero Beach’s drinking water, which is more than twice the agency’s maximum limit of 4 parts per trillion.
The EPA considers that a dangerous level, but city officials say Vero Beach water customers – including thousands of residents on the barrier island inside and outside of city limits – should not be overly concerned with the test results, which they claim are due to newer, more stringent testing methods adopted in 2024, not an increase in contamination.
Vero Beach is not alone in having these contaminants in its water, but it is among a small minority of drinking water producers that have been identified. According to the EPA, only 15 percent of utilities nationwide that produce water for 10,000 or more people had PFAS exceeding the agency’s maximum contaminant levels.
No PFAS were detected in water distributed by Indian River County, but drinking water from the Fort Pierce Utilities Authority and from St. Lucie County Utilities customers on North Hutchinson Island both tested over the limit for PFAS, according to the EPA report.
“The extent of forever chemical contamination goes much farther than just Vero Beach,” says Gary Roderick, a former environmental administrator for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection contacted by Vero Beach 32963. “The state of Florida has been lagging in its sampling of drinking water, surface waters and soils for forever chemicals. It needs to step up and do more than just concentrate on facilities that produce these chemicals and instead look to see how those chemicals are ending up in surface and groundwater sources.”
“Most producers of PFAS are landfills, airports, military bases and industrial manufacturing areas,” Roderick adds.
The city’s utility draws its water from 26 wells, most of them located on several thousand acres of city land surrounding the Vero Beach Regional Airport. Seven of them draw from the Floridan Aquifer, a vast, rock-encased reservoir deep beneath the surface that isn’t affected by surface contaminants.
But the remaining wells draw water from surficial aquifers that are only 80 to 100 feet down – so named because they contain groundwater near the surface that is recharged by rain. It is this water that is prone to contamination from PFAS and other chemicals such as pesticides that soak into the aquifers along with rainwater.
Just north of the airport is a 116-acre site that served as the area’s primary dump from around 1960 until 1977. At the time, there were no stringent standards for landfill design, so the site, referred to as the South Gifford Road Landfill, was basically a series of unlined holes in the ground, into which waste of all sorts was dumped, including chemicals now known to be harmful.
Roderick says there is a high likelihood that at least some of the PFAS in Vero Beach’s drinking water originated from this landfill site, but county officials dispute that.
Indian River County Solid Waste Disposal District performed aggressive remediation on the site in 2004 and has continued passive remediation there ever since, according to Himanshu Mehta, managing director of the disposal district.
More than 3,800 tons of contaminated soil were removed in 2004, and in 2008 and 2009 the county conducted bioremediation activities – including installing bio-barriers to help prevent the contaminants from seeping into the groundwater.
“There is no official data to suggest that PFAS are coming from this site,” Mehta says.
Vero Beach Water and Sewer Department director Rob Bolton also doubts that the PFAS are coming from the landfill site. Forever chemicals are ubiquitous, he says. “These chemicals were around long before the EPA was formed in 1972. Pretty much all Americans have been exposed to them their entire lives. It’s in our blood.”
More than likely, PFAS in the city’s water are from firefighting foam used in training sessions at the airport, and from other industrial products, Bolton says.
The city first tested its water for PFAS and other contaminants in 2013 and found no PFAS, Bolton says. Since then, the EPA’s testing requirements have been updated twice and testing methods have become much more accurate, he adds.
Currently, the city draws about half its water from the Floridan aquifer and the other half from its surficial aquifer wells. Water drawn from the surficial aquifers is treated by coagulation and nanofiltration to remove solids, then treated with lime to reduce hardness, and disinfected with chloramines. None of these processes remove all PFAS.
The city plans to drill three more Floridan Aquifer wells to produce a blend of 60 percent uncontaminated Floridan Aquifer water and 40 percent surficial aquifer water, Bolton said. Longterm, the city intends to produce water that is a 70/30 blend, further reducing the amount of surface water in the mix that flows from Vero faucets.
The city also is in the midst of conducting a $250,000 study to determine how to improve overall water quality, looking at new treatment methods such as ion exchange and granulated activated carbon filtration, which is highly effective at removing industrial chemicals.
“We’ll be looking at all the options and comparing capital costs and operating costs to determine the best way to move forward,” Bolton says, noting that the city will probably seek low-interest state loans for the improvements, which won’t be implemented before 2028 or even 2029.
In the meantime, former FDEP official Roderick says that if elevated PFAS levels have been detected in Vero’s water, it is a threat to public safety.
