A little-known chemical not thought to be safe permeated the tap water of thousands of people in Seminole County for years.
That fact — revealed in the Sentinel’s “Toxic Secret” investigation — thrusted 1,4-dioxane’s worrisome prevalence onto the public’s radar last month, irking Seminole County residents and compelling public officials to take action.
In response, Seminole County and the cities of Lake Mary and Sanford, where the chemical was found the most potent, assured residents that after making adjustments their drinking water was safe. Still, important, broader questions remained.
An onslaught of concerns from Seminole County residents were scrutinized during a free public forum hosted by the Orlando Sentinel at Seminole State College’s Sanford/Lake Mary campus Tuesday night.
Questions addressed included: What determinations can be made about the source of the chemical? Why did the overspill go unaddressed for so long? And how does one assess potential years worth of its damage?
Panel discussions with reporters, water plant system experts and government officials representing affected areas addressed a bigger need for tougher regulations and transparency. Panelists also mapped out how 1,4-dioxane infiltrated the Floridan Aquifer and chewed over the origins of the chemical, tracing it back to a shuttered Siemens factory in west Lake Mary.
“With the background I have with environmental reporting, I pretty quickly realized that this [issue] was big,” said Kevin Spear, a reporter with the Orlando Sentinel. “… for two cities that are a big part of the county to be troubled and paired with this chemical, there’s no comparison.”
In the Orlando Sentinel’s four-part investigation, experts studying 1,4-dioxane said the public would have benefitted from being informed about the chemical sooner, even if there was little information about its potential harm. Rather than continue to let 1,4-dioxane slip into drinking water, public officials should have treated the uncertainty more seriously, experts said.
At the panel, Art Woodruff, the mayor of Sanford, said the city is working on being more transparent by drafting an ordinance that require anyone with knowledge of a spill to notify the city.
“For any issue, there’s always more you can do,” he said after the forum. “The question we’re asking ourselves about how much communication is: Is [water pollutants] the issue that needs more communication?”
A major response to the “Toxic Secret” series has come from cities that are retesting their water treatment plants in hopes to ease the minds of residents who are concerned about the existence of 1,4-dioxane and other chemicals like perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS, in their drinking water.
Sunshine Water Services, which services nearly 15,000 customers in parts of Sanford, Longwood and other locations in Seminole County, ran tests and said no 1,4-dioxane was detected. Winter Springs tested its wells, three treatment plants and the overall water system and found no traces.
On Tuesday, Altamonte Springs announced it found no 1,4-dioxane or PFAS compounds in its drinking water after running tests.
“That is not surprising because Altamonte Springs is at a higher elevation than Lake Mary and the water table flows away from us. But the primary reason that we do not have 1,4-dioxane in our water system is because Altamonte Springs never had significant manufacturing industries in the city,” a release from the city stated.
Longwood on Wednesday announced it, too, recently sent water samples for testing and 1,4-dioxane was not detected. “We are pleased to confirm that the City of Longwood’s drinking water continues to be safe for our residents and water customers,” a statement from city spokesperson Liane Cartagena said.
1,4-dioxane is alleged to have originated from an old General Dynamics and Siemens plant operated by subsidiary Stromberg-Carlson near the Lake Mary Wellness and Technology Park off Rinehart Road. The plant manufactured telephone circuit boards for decades beginning in the late 1960s, and records unfolded by Spear and Sentinel reporters Martin E. Comas and Caroline Catherman suggest the plant is the source of the 1,4-dioxane.
According to the “Toxic Secret” series, the chemical’s presence was found in Sanford’s tap water and in the county’s Northwest Service Area in 2013. The following year, the chemical was found in Lake Mary’s water.
Little was done because there were and continue to be few rules and research regarding 1,4-dioxane.
“There’s very few scientists that have done research on this topic and even fewer that have done research recently,” Catherman said during the panel. She said the lack of studies done on the chemical and its impact to humans made it “difficult to categorize the health risks.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced utilities would be required to remove PFAS from drinking water. When it comes to regulating the presence of 1,4-dioxane, the EPA is drafting a new risk evaluation, but it can take years to go into effect.
During the panel, Seminole County Commissioner Lee Constantine said the county will be pushing the EPA to adopt tougher regulations for 1,4-dioxane and will be seeking more local power to shut down polluters. The county also added a water-quality dashboard to its website to deliver information about its drinking water.
“We’re investigating going after the polluters and we are establishing an education program with the owners of private wells so that they can look at their own wells and protect themselves,” Constantine said.
Scott Rankin, Lake Mary’s chief water plant operator, said the city is using a highly advanced water treatment plant to clean its water. Meanwhile, Sanford and Seminole County are managing water flow from the affected wells to reduce the concentration of the chemical to safe levels.
During the panel, Jake Varn, an attorney representing Sanford in water issues, said the state departments of environmental protection and health have enough “horsepower” to press responsible parties to investigate 1,4-dioxane in drinking water.
“This is a statewide problem. We’re just at the tip of the iceberg,” Varn said. “We got serious water quality problems around the state of Florida that we need to be dealing with as opposed to putting our heads in the sand and being an ostrich.”
Representatives from Florida’s Department of Health did not respond to an invitation from the Sentinel to participate in the panel. The state’s environmental protection agency declined to send representatives.
The EPA deemed 1,4-dioxane as likely to cause cancer.
One attendee asked panelists to check 1,4-dioxane contamination levels at a lake 3,970 feet from the shuttered Siemens factory in west Lake Mary. She said her neighbors have suffered from illness and she herself has cancer.
In response, Catherman directed her to Dr. Vasilis Vasiliou, a professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health, which is researching health impacts of 1,4-dioxane.
Environmental advocates outside of the panel Tuesday evening said they’re concerned about a system playing out across the state that favors money-making industries over people’s health.
Jim Durocher, the East Central Florida regional coordinator with the Right to Clean Water organization, was passing out petitions outside of the event to amend the state constitution by making it a fundamental right to clean water.
The problem isn’t a lack of regulation, he said, the problem is the plethora of permits that allow industries to circumvent environment-friendly procedures that could lessen or stop pollutants from entering the environment.
“We need a paradigm shift,” he said. “And the right to clean water is a paradigm shift.”
arabines@orlandosentinel.com
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the service area of Sunshine Water Services.
