PHILLIPSTON — The town has landed a $90,290 grant from the state Department of Environmental Protection to install a system to treat PFAS found in the water supply of the Phillipston Memorial Building, former home of Phillipston Memorial Elementary School. According to town Chief Administrative Officer Melanie Jackson, the money will be used for the actual installation of the system. The town had previously received a grant of about $50,000 for an engineering study by Tighe & Bond and for the purchase of the water treatment equipment.

In announcing the grant, the Healey-Driscoll administration stated, “The town will use the funds to install PFAS treatment and to reopen the building as a school in the future.” However, when asked if there were in fact plans to once again use the building as a school, Jackson replied, “Not at this time.” She said the project is being undertaken now in order to maintain the public water supply into the building. If the treatment system were not installed now, she explained, any decision that might be made in the future to revert to use of the building as a school would have to wait until a treatment plan was implemented.

“If we needed to reopen it as a school in the future,” said Jackson, “we want to make sure we are already a public water supply. I do know the whole Narragansett school district is hurting for space. They are already reaching capacity at the new elementary school, so it’s not something that would never happen in the future, which is why we’re working toward making sure we still have a public water supply.”

The town of Phillipston has no municipal water or sewer system, meaning all homes, businesses, and public buildings are served by wells and septic systems.

The source of the PFAS, Jackson said, has been determined. “The levels go up and down as they are tested quarterly,” she continued. “We did have the other town wells tested, and it’s interesting; the police department well, which is not far from the Memorial School well, has shown no PFAS. The transfer station was clear, the fire department was clear, all of our other wells are clear.”

According to the state grant announcement, “PFAS are a group of harmful man-made chemicals widely used in common consumer products, industrial processes, and in certain firefighting foams. Exposure to sufficiently elevated levels of PFAS compounds may cause a variety of health effects, including developmental effects in infants, impacts to certain organ functions and the immune system, and an elevated cancer risk.”

The project in Phillipston is one of 21 water projects statewide to share $17.4 million in grant awards “to assist with long-term solutions that address and mitigate emerging contaminants in drinking water,” said the announcement. An award of $71,138 was made to the Swift River School in New Salem, “which will install a PFAS treatment system using an anion exchange system that will be added to the existing drinking water treatment system.”

State Sen. Jo Comerford said she was “heartened” that the Swift River School will receive the funding “to ensure safe drinking water for students, faculty, and staff.”

“I am grateful,” she said, “to MassDEP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for assisting with long-term solutions to address contaminants in drinking water. While we must prevent PFAS contamination in the commonwealth and protect our environment, this funding is necessary progress towards sustainable, clean water for my constituents.”

Funding for the grants come from the federal government. Launched in 2023 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities Grant Program provides states with funds to assist small and disadvantaged communities in improving their drinking water through projects and activities that address emerging contaminants that are registered on EPA’s Contaminant Candidate Lists, according to the DEP.