Chemicals found in the groundwater in East Hampton have Suffolk County officials calling on New York State to clean them up now, in a case that has raised fresh concerns about drinking water on the East End of Long Island. The contamination has already forced changes to the local water supply as officials try to determine how far the problem reaches.
During testing of the groundwater in East Hampton, Suffolk officials say the water authority found high levels of a specific contaminant similar to PFAS, the class of substances commonly referred to as forever chemicals because they persist in the environment. The agent of concern, according to officials, is a short-chain PFAS, a variant that has drawn growing scrutiny from regulators.
The county's health commissioner said officials do not yet know the extent of the harm this particular contaminant causes, an uncertainty that has added urgency to the response. Even without a full understanding of the risk, the county is calling on the Department of Environmental Conservation to clean it up, pressing the state to act on the contamination that has been detected.
In the meantime, the Suffolk County Water Authority has taken multiple public wells out of service as a precaution. Officials say nearly 30 private wells in the area may be affected, and the authority has been reaching out to those who have private wells to ask whether they want their water tested, an effort to gauge how widely the contaminant has spread.
County officials have pointed to a specific origin for the pollution. The Suffolk County Executive and the Suffolk County Water Authority blame the groundwater contamination on a fire that happened at a battery energy storage system in East Hampton three years ago, tying the current findings to an incident that residents and officials have not forgotten.
State regulators, however, have not embraced that conclusion. The Department of Environmental Conservation says it is not sure where the contamination is coming from and that further investigation is needed. The DEC noted that nine private wells tested in East Hampton did not have elevated levels of cancer-causing chemicals, and said crews are actively testing the area to pin down the source before developing a plan to remediate the contamination.