Water Safe To Drink Despite Superfund, Says Town Of Spencer

The Environmental Protection Agency recently declared a Superfund site in Spencer because of contaminated groundwater. But town officials say the water is safe to drink.

The Franklin Street Groundwater site is contaminated with PCE — a chemical the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says likely causes cancer. It’s used in dry cleaning or to get grease off metal. The EPA put the Franklin Street site on its priority list last week.

BBP Water Corporation, which treats some of the town’s water, says it cleaned up a lot of the contamination. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management says the PCE in the water is at safe levels.

Town attorney Richard Lorenz says the town is grateful for the EPA’s help in finishing the cleanup, but it doesn’t want residents to get the wrong idea.

“To relay to people that there is any danger to them or to their families or to the general business climate that we’re trying to maintain here,” says Lorenz. 

The EPA doesn’t yet know where the contamination came from or where it’s going. IDEM identified no less than nine facilities that could have caused the PCE plume.