SEQUIM –– Clallam County is investigating a mysterious concentration of Freon 22, a refrigerant once commonly used in heat pumps and air conditioners, recently discovered in wells outside Sequim.
Jennifer Garcelon, project manager with the Clallam County Health and Human Services Environmental Health Department, said the amount of Freon 22 detected in samples tested by state and county health officials does not present a public health threat.
The Freon 22 was discovered by state Department of Health officials while performing a test for volatile organic compounds in the Deytona Water System, which provides water to 27 homes just north of the city limit.
It was later found in samples taken from four nearby private wells.
Freon 22 evaporates into a gas form as soon as it hits ambient air, according to Sophia Petrow with the state Department of Health.
It boils into a gas at temperatures below freezing.
That means, Petrow said, the chance of it sickening those who ingest it are slim.
“The level that we detected is way, way, way low,” said Iva Burks, director of the county’s health and human services department.
Those concerned can remove the Freon 22 by boiling it or running it through a charcoal filter, Garcelon said.
Multiple tests of the water from Deytona and four private wells nearby showed a Freon 22 concentration that ranged from 20 to 239 parts per billion.
There are no state or federal regulations on how much Freon 22 is acceptable in drinking water.
Garcelon said the only standard they could find was a Wisconsin law that limits Freon 22 to 1,000 parts per billion, more than four times the level found in the 45-year-old Deytona system.
“I’m just glad it sounds like it’s something that’s not going to get people sick from their water,” said Don Sorensen, owner of the Deytona water system.
“Hopefully now, they’ll figure out where it’s coming from.”
Freon 22 has been banned by federal law as an ozone depleter, Garcelon said.
It is, however, still in use in many air conditioners and heat pumps made before the ban.
“It’s still out there. It’s still being used,” Garcelon said.
With technical assistance and toxicologists from the state departments of Health and Ecology, county officials are now trying to target the source.
“How it got into the water, I don’t know” Petrow said.
“It shouldn’t be in the water. It’s not something we would expect to see.”
Garcelon said the county tested seven private wells within a half-mile of the Deytona system. Four of those showed Freon 22 was present.
All the wells that showed Freon 22 pull their water from the valley’s shallowest aquifer.
The contaminated wells are all shallower than 100 feet, Garcelon said.
More wells from the area will be tested in the hopes of centralizing the concentration and finding a source of the banned refrigerant.
Although the Deytona system is about three-quarters of a mile from the city’s nearest wellhead, Public Works Director Paul Haines said the city plans to test its wells next week as a precaution.
“Because this system has a Sequim address, we’re going to perform tests to monitor for it,” Haines said.
The city was scheduled for a volatile-organic-compound test this year anyhow, Haines said.
Officials have decided to do it now in the wake of the Freon 22 discovery.
“It’s not an issue for us to test for it, and so we’re going to do it, just to make sure,” Haines said.
The city’s wells draw from deeper aquifers.
Class A water systems are given the volatile organic compound test every three years, Haines said.
“This is not something we test for,” Petrow said of Freon 22. “This is the first detection I have ever seen.”
A spike in a chemical was noticed in the spectrogram of the test at the lab, Petrow said, and it was determined to be Freon 22.
Petrow and Garcelon said they took new samples and performed follow-up tests to make sure the reading was correct.
Those subsequent tests also showed Freon 22 was present in the water.
Petrow said they immediately consulted toxicologists from the health and ecology departments for advice.
“They indicated that it was at low levels and no health concern,” she said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.