Samples of 72 private wells in the areas of Roanoke and Montgomery counties to be tested by the Virginia Department of Health

In Roanoke and Montgomery counties, where a so-called “forever chemical” was found in the Roanoke River, the Virginia Department of Health has found 72 private wells to test.

After GenX was found in the Spring Hollow reservoir, one of the places where people in the Roanoke Valley get their drinking water, and in the river that feeds the reservoir, plans were made to test the water in a few wells.

The wells that will be tested are around the reservoir and near where the contamination started in the South Fork of the Roanoke River. They serve homes and businesses that are not customers of the Western Virginia Water Authority.

Most of the time, people who own private wells have to test their water and pay for the results.

Lance Gregory, who is in charge of the health department’s division of onsite water and wastewater services, says that VDH has asked the state’s Environmental Emergency Response Fund for money to pay for the costs.

Once the money is found, state officials will get in touch with the well owners to set up the tests.

The water authority is still testing its public water supplies, and the tests show that the amount of GenX, a chemical that can repel oil and water and is used to make a wide range of consumer products, is going down.

Michael McEvoy, the head of the water authority, told the board at a meeting on Thursday, “It’s still there, and it’s not going away.”

“But it looks like the numbers are beginning to go down, which is good.”

GenX was first found in Spring Hollow in early 2020, when people were just starting to learn about the dangers of chemicals that last forever. In June 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a health advisory saying that people shouldn’t drink water with more than 10 parts per trillion of GenX in it for a long time. This made the situation worse.

When Spring Hollow was first tested, the concentrations were about 60 parts per trillion. Then, in the fall of 2017, tests of water in the Roanoke River just upstream of where the water goes into the reservoir found 139 parts per trillion.

In November, ProChem, a plant in Elliston that works on industrial water treatment equipment, was found to be the source of the contamination. About five miles upstream of Spring Hollow, ProChem was cleaning factory equipment for Chemours, a big chemical company in West Virginia that makes GenX.

ProChem said it didn’t know that its process was putting the chemical into the South Fork of the Roanoke River, so it immediately ended its contract with Chemours.

Even though the numbers have gone down since then, the damage caused by GenX is likely to last for a long time. GenX is one of more than 6,000 chemicals that will never break down. These chemicals are also called PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

The chemicals, which are used to make nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, fast food containers, upholstery, carpets, cosmetics, and other consumer goods, break down very slowly in the environment and have been linked to a number of health problems.

Thursday, at a meeting of the water authority’s board, McEvoy gave an update on test results.

On December 9 and 16, 2022, the most recent “grab samples,” which measure the level of contamination at a certain time, did not find any GenX. These tests were done on water from the Roanoke River just upstream of where water is pumped into Spring Hollow.

But passive sampling, a second type of testing that can show long-term contamination, showed that GenX is still in the water just upstream of the Spring Hollow Reservoir and downstream of ProChem.

Passive sampling was done from Oct. 20, 2022, to Dec. 1, 2022, and from Dec. 1, 2022, to Jan. 12, 2023. It did not measure the level of GenX.

The water authority hasn’t been pumping water from the Roanoke River into Spring Hollow since September of last year. Before going to about 14,000 of the 67,000 water authority customers, the water that stays in the reservoir is cleaned by a carbon filtering system.

The most recent tests of treated water were done on October 11, and the GenX level was found to be 8.41 parts per trillion, which is below the EPA’s health recommendation.

After GenX was found, the water authority made plans to upgrade the carbon filtering system, which would cost $13.5 million. This system is not available to people with private wells.

VDH wants to test 25 different PFAS, including GenX, in private wells. Property owners will be told how long it might take to get lab results at the time samples are taken from their homes.

Samples can be taken from private wells if the owner wants to, but the state can usually make them do it. On its website, VDH suggests that wells be tested for PFAS if they are within one or two miles of a known source of contamination or a contaminated water source.

The EPA’s health advice is based on drinking two liters of water every day for a lifetime, and it is only a suggestion.

Concerns about GenX in the Roanoke River come from the fact that it has been there for a long time (ProChem worked on Chemours’ equipment for about seven years) and is found in very high concentrations near the source.

Tests showed that there were 23,900 parts per trillion of GenX in a spot where treated ProChem wastewater was dumped into a river by a county water treatment plant.

The company says that it is no longer cleaning Chemours’ equipment, so it is no longer releasing as much wastewater as it used to.

A report given to the board of the water authority on Thursday said that tests done by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality show a “substantially reduced level.”