
Hallowell Water District’s PFAS-free spigot, which allows residents to avoid the elevated PFAS levels in city drinking water, is seen last year outside the district’s office in Hallowell. An idea to fix the PFAS problem by connecting Hallowell to the Greater Augusta Utility District won’t work, water district officials said. Hallowell is building a filtration facility, but it won’t be ready for several years. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel
AUGUSTA — Unfortunately, fixing the PFAS problem in Hallowell’s drinking water isn’t as easy as opening a valve.
During last week’s meeting of the Greater Augusta Utility District board of trustees, Chairperson Ken Knight suggested providing Hallowell with Augusta drinking water, where the level of “forever chemicals” is near zero after the utility district shut down two of its PFAS-impacted wells in December.
Assistant General Manager Andy Begin said it would be as easy as opening a valve to let water through to Hallowell’s piping system via connections on Whitten Road and State Street.
But that valve connection likely is too small to work for the community, and installing larger pipes would be costly, Hallowell Water District Superintendent Zach Lovely said — meaning Hallowell residents will have to wait several more years for a brand-new $11 million filtration facility to have consistent, at-home access to PFAS-free drinking water.
Hallowell’s drinking water contains about 14 parts per trillion of PFAS — below the current state regulatory standard but well above a new federal standard that will go into effect in 2029.
Hallowell’s drinking water source — two wells in Chelsea — are partially replenished by the Kennebec River, which has high levels of PFAS contamination. While the aquifer can filter out most other chemicals and bacteria, many PFAS can get through.
During the Hallowell Water District’s most recent aquifer test in 2023, overall PFAS levels were at 14.4 parts per trillion, and have been as high as 18.8 parts per trillion since the district started requiring testing in 2022. The state’s current limit for all PFAS chemicals is 20 parts per trillion, and the new EPA standard, which will go into effect in 2029, sets 4 part per trillion limits for several individual kinds of PFAS.
Exposure to PFAS has been linked to reproductive impacts, developmental delays in children, an increased risk of some cancers and decreased immune response. Because PFAS are so widely used in common household objects, such as non-stick pans and waterproof jackets, many people and animals around the world have detectable levels of PFAS in their blood.

It’s an issue Hallowell residents are concerned about. Kristin Aiello and Sharon Treat organized a forum last week on the impact of PFAS and future plans of the Hallowell Water District, which was attended by dozens. Residents expressed concerns about health impacts, and had the chance to ask questions to state officials and medical professionals.
Resources from last week’s PFAS forum have been posted on the city of Hallowell’s website, ranging from strategies for at-home filtration to potential health impacts from long-term exposure.
During the forum, Lovely presented updated plans for the filtration facility, set to open by 2028. The water district was forced to begin remediation work after the new federal PFAS standard was announced last year by the EPA, and the district has already received $8.2 million in grant funding for the project.
In the meantime, the only public access to PFAS-free drinking water is a spigot at the Hallowell Water District building on Winthrop Street, where residents have a 5-gallon daily limit.
Knight’s proposal at the Greater Augusta Utility District meeting last week would have provided an at-home, PFAS-free option — eliminating many concerns about accessibility. General Manager Brian Tarbuck said the districts have been connected for years for emergency purposes, in case Hallowell’s water was suddenly unusable.
But, Lovely said, the piping connections between Hallowell and Augusta are too small for a safe, long-term connection.
“We’d be fed with a 6-inch main, so if we ever had any major fire issues, once our tanks get depleted, we just wouldn’t get a huge fire flow from Augusta because of the restrictions in our system,” Lovely said.
Sizing up the pipes would quickly become another multimillion-dollar project, he said, and could take years. Larger pipes can cost $300 per foot, and could get even more expensive with rising construction material costs.
Neither district has studied how a switchover might impact costs for their thousands of customers. Tarbuck also said any permanent connection would require weeks of testing to ensure the utility district’s supply would have enough capacity for Hallowell’s water demands and that water quality would stay safe enough under a different piping system.
“Flint, Michigan, is a perfect example of that,” Tarbuck said. “Flint didn’t think about how switching over water sources would impact their quality.”
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