New Faculty Research Suggests More Extensive PFOA Contamination
Faculty members David Bond, Janet Foley, and Tim Schroeder, who together run a National Science Foundation-funded research project on PFOA, have conducted a regional soil study that suggests airborne PFOA contamination that is more extensive than originally thought.
From the VT Digger article:
"Environmental officials say a report prepared by Bennington College faculty members lends support to their view that former ChemFab Corp. factories here were the principal contributor to widespread PFOA contamination of soils and private wells.
The conclusions in the research report 'didn’t come as a surprise to me,' said Peter Walke, deputy secretary of the state Agency of Natural Resources. 'I think this is a clear indication of what we have maintained all along.'
In the report released this week, David Bond, Janet Foley and Tim Schroeder said their research focused on airborne emissions from the company’s former factory in North Bennington, not far from the college campus. They addressed the question of how far emissions from fabric-coating operations involving Teflon dried at high temperature traveled from the plant on Route 67A.
'Downwind of the ChemFab plant, our research has begun to identify a distinct plume of soil with elevated levels of PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) stretching over 10 miles eastward,' the faculty members said in a summary of the report."