WESTFIELD – After the Westfield City Council decided to table a motion to bring in members of the Water Department to discuss polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) levels at its previous meeting, Councilor Kristen Mello brought forward a motion to reconsider extending the invitation at the March 4 meeting.

“At our last meeting everyone voted unanimously that if the questions that I included were not addressed at the Water Commission meeting that this motion would come back, and they would come before us. I would like to say that I appreciated what I heard but the fundamental questions about how we ended up in the situation we were in were not answered,” she said.

Councilor Dave Flaherty said that the purpose of the filters was to show that PFAS was not in the water but trace amounts of the substances were not being counted.

"They have been making it clear that the goal of these filters was to deliver non-detectable contaminants in the PFAS family. In this case, there seems to be an email that says things were detected but they were below the required parts per trillion and therefore were reported as zero. The goal is non-detect, they were detected and not reported. Supposedly they were not reported because somebody in Westfield told the laboratory company to not report them,” he said.

With a $12 million bond coming through from the Water Department for more testing, Matthews-Kane said she wanted answers before approving another project.

“They were not able to answer all of the questions because they had sent out samples for further testing at other labs to correlate and see if they could pin down the issue. As soon as they get the answers back, I would like to know why before I have to vote on any further projects,” she said.

Councilor John Beltrandi said if the Water Department is purposely keeping information from the city, they may need to take legal action.

“I’m a little concerned that there is an accusation out there that somebody from the Water Department actually did not forward documentation that would prove there is PFAS in those filters and if so, maybe we should be talking to the law department,” he said.

Mello explained that an email from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection stated the laboratory manager was the one who levied the accusation.

“It’s in the email from MassDEP, and we did not make this accusation, the laboratory manager did. This is why I would like it addressed because either we are using a lab that is blaming stuff on us that is their problem, or someone we are paying to monitor these filters specifically directed the lab to keep that information quiet,” she said.

In the email from Catherine Wanat with the MassDEP Drinking Water Program to Westfield Water Department Head Treatment Officer Brenda Lopez, which was provided to Reminder Publishing after the meeting, she stated that Michele Koch of Con-Test said the testing lab was told to only provide the Reporting Limit.

"She also indicated that Westfield had previously asked Con-Test only to report the Reporting Limit (RL)?and not the Method Detection Limit (MDL). If that’s the case, it’s possible some of these low-level detects (above the [MDL] but below the RL) had been there previously, but you had not been seeing them because of how they had been reported,” Wanat said.

Another document provided to Reminder Publishing explained that while the RL is the minimum reporting limit, the MDL can pick up traces of contaminants below that.  

“The RL is the lowest concentration of the substance tested that can be reported reliably under normal laboratory conditions. Each laboratory has the ability to detect chemicals down to a certain concentration, known as the MDL,” the document said.

In an email after the meeting, Mello said that if the statement about not using the MDL is true, PFAS could have been present in the granular activated carbon (GAC) filters before November 2020.

“If someone from Westfield asked the lab to label qualified PFAS detections as Non-Detect, this is a very serious concern. If this statement is true Westfield would have missed seeing the qualified low-level detects that would have indicated breakthrough of PFAS through the GAC filter earlier than November 2020,” she wrote.

Mello added that she initially filed the motion because she believes residents need to be able to trust the Water Department.

“I originally filed the motion because Westfield residents need to be able to trust that the Water Department will be required to explain and correct this situation, particularly since we depend on accurate monitoring of PFAS in the GAC filters at Wells 7 and 8,” she wrote.

Ultimately the council agreed to the motion to have members of the Water Department answer questions at a future Public Health and Safety Subcommittee meeting.

The Westfield City Council next meets on March 18.