South Middlesex Times

Systems designed to treat arsenic in private well water may be malfunctioning and endangering the health of those relying on them, according to Rutgers researchers.

Megan Rockafellow-Baldoni, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health and justice at the Rutgers School of Public Health, together with co-authors including Rutgers alum Steven Spayd, a retired research scientist formerly with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, tested the water of 62 New Jersey homes with whole-house arsenic-removing water treatment systems. Their study was published in the journal Water Environment Research.

Spayd said, "these water treatment systems may be solving one exposure problem by removing dissolved arsenic from the water, but potentially creating a new exposure, the ingestion of arsenic treatment media with high concentrations of arsenic.”

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element known to be a human carcinogen and hazardous to health. For this reason, when New Jersey homes with wells are sold, it is required they are tested for arsenic. If found above safe levels for drinking water, an arsenic treatment system can be installed.

In such treatment systems, water from the well flows through a specialized adsorptive filter. When functioning as intended, the adsorptive media and filtered arsenic remain in the treatment tank while potable water flows into the home.

However, Rockafellow-Baldoni and co-authors found microparticles of arsenic treatment media in the drinking water at 71 percent of the tested homes. This media is intended to stay within the treatment tank and not enter a home’s drinking water as it likely contains high concentrations of adsorbed arsenic.

Arsenic may not be the only contaminant of concern: When radium, another naturally occurring yet hazardous substance, is detected in well water, it is effectively removed with a water softener.

During their research, Rockafellow-Baldoni and Spayd detected microparticles of water softener resin in 84 percent of homes with water softeners. This suggests that in some homes microparticles with adsorbed radium might also be present.

They added that further research is needed to determine why these malfunctions occur and ascertain the concentrations of arsenic and radium in escaping media.

Until further studies can address these issues, researchers encourage well owners to install a 5-micron post-treatment sediment filter to capture escaping media. Information about obtaining and properly installing the filter is available from the New Jersey Geological and Water Survey.