BARNSTABLE – Barnstable County officials say progress is being made on the cleanup of pollution which was the supposed cause of the contamination of drinking wells in Barnstable.
The county is currently under an Immediate Response Action order by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to clean up PFOS, or perfluorooctane sulfonate, from firefighting foam used at the Fire and Rescue Training Academy.
The pollution academy is the alleged cause of the contamination of Barnstable’s Mary Dunn Well.
The county settled a lawsuit from the town for $3 million over the summer, but chairman of the Barnstable County Commissioners Leo Cakounes said costs remain.
“We are still doing work on our property – ground that we own,” Cakounes said. “And we are… continuing to remediate and remove PFOS.”
County Administrator Jack Yunits said the state’s IRA order has not been closed but could be soon.
“I think we are at a point where the town could where the town could put together the documents that would help us move into the next phase and close the IRA in DEP’s opinion,” Yunits said.
The county provided an update on progress being made to the state in the middle of October.
The county discussed potential remediation alternatives that would be efficient and cut costs.
“The DEP seemed to be pretty supportive,” Yunits said. “We just have some homework to do to tie it all up.”
Hundreds of thousands of dollars has already been spent by the county on the cleanup of pollution at the training academy.
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