HOUGHTON LAKE — The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, looking into possible PFAS contamination at a Northern Michigan marina.
The marina is in Houghton Lake in Roscommon County.
EGLE said the new owner of the marina discovered low levels of PFAS at or slightly above what’s considered safe.
The marina’s owner noticed the slightly elevated PFOS and PFAS contamination levels after installing temporary monitoring wells during a baseline environmental assessment, but the site lead for EGLE, Jacob Palinsky said the tests aren’t cause for concern, yet.
“They’re both slightly above the drinking water standards. It has a low level of PFAS detection onsite. It is not a large concern. We are going to further assess the site,” said Palinsky.
The site was historically used for boat manufacturing and there was a fire back in 2003. Palinsky said they are looking into whether or not Aqueous Film Forming Foam or A-Triple F foam that contained pfas could be behind the contamination, but right now it’s not looking like the culprit.
“They are not likely to have used it. It is possible that the contamination is actually coming from the boat marina itself, which if they’ve used like waxes and different cleaners and stain repellents, stuff like that,” said Palinsky.
EGLE said the new owner is following the right steps. He said by doing a baseline environmental assessment or BEA, it gives new property owners protection from being liable for contamination caused by previous owners.
“The only contamination detected is PFAS, which is very low levels. So as long as he doesn’t exacerbate these past levels or any other contaminants, he will be protected underneath that,” said Palinksy.
Instead of waiting for the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team or MPART to do the sampling, Michigan Consulting Environmental went ahead and conducted the tests.
“Once we receive the results from the owner, we are going to put together a plan with DHHS. Then MPART which is a part of EGLE and local health departments to further assess what we’re going to do with further or future drinking water samples.
Palinsky said further sampling of the area around the marina may be a possibility in the future, depending on what the final results are.
“We will then have a meeting to further discuss what needs to be done, whether it be sampling more residential homes outside of the site area or kind of just putting it at a halt,” said Palinsky.
EGLE says with the levels of pfas being detected are low, it’s still safe to boat or fish at the marina.