Carl Flewitt, 62, lived just 130 metres from an airport fire services practice area where flame retardants containing perfluorooctane sulfate (Pfos) was regularly used during training.
He was told in a letter from Alderney’s Public Works Department to stop drinking water from his borehole in January 2010 but was never informed about the extent of its contamination.
Recent testing, at Mr Flewitt’s instigation, has revealed that his water still contains 11.9 micrograms (ug) of Pfos per litre. The UK Government’s Drinking Water Inspectorate says healthy water must contain less than 1 microgram per litre.
He believes he may have been left to unknowingly drink highly contaminated water for up to two years after concerns about airport run-off water sparked water testing in Guernsey.
‘In my worst nightmares I was expecting it to be two or three times above the safety levels because I’m the closest to the practice ground where Pfos was used,’ said Mr Flewitt, who has now left the property.
‘Finding that it was actually 10 times the recommended acceptable levels was terrifying. It came as a huge shock. Heaven knows how high the levels were 10 years ago. I drank this stuff at high levels of contamination for years and years.
‘According to the DWI we should have been given health advice, monitored and the whole thing reviewed. As it was, I’ve had bad health and, directly as a result of finding our water was contaminated to unknown levels, my son has suffered terrible pyschological problems.
‘Now we find out that it was even worse than we thought.’
He wants to know why it appeared that sampling was not carried out at his borehole – or indeed the rest of Alderney – until 2009, when monitoring began in Guernsey in 2007. He believes he could have stopped drinking the contaminated water much earlier if the authorities had acted more quickly.
It is one of a list of questions that he wants answering. But he says he has been confronted with a brick wall by the States of Alderney and Guernsey.
‘From the point we got the letter onwards, they told us nothing,’ he said.
‘No information about the contaminant or levels detected, no medical advice, no reassurance. All we’ve had is public reassurances that the levels were within guidelines, and that no one was exposed to anything dangerous. Well I was and there has been absolutely no duty of care to me as a resident of the Bailiwick. Why do I have to take the matter to court to find out how badly I was poisoned? This whole matter is a disgrace.’
The Guernsey Press approached the States of Guernsey with Mr Flewitt’s questions:
What was the level of contaminate in his water in 2009?
What period of time elapsed between testing water run off at Guernsey Airport and testing at Alderney Airport, and Mr Flewitt’s borehole?
How long elapsed before he was notified? Why is there no indication that medical professionals were consulted?
The States of Guernsey provided the following statement.
‘The Office of Environmental Health and Pollution Regulation received an enquiry about the property in December 2018. It is our policy that we do not disclose specific information regarding private dwellings and this remains the case in relation to this property. The property has been vacant throughout our recent involvement and this remains the ongoing position.’
Fire-fighting foam containing Pfos was used as part of training and operations at Guernsey and Alderney Airports from approximately 1976 to 2003.
Mr Flewitt took over the lease of his home, Telegraph Tower, from the States of Alderney, in 1994. He excavated a borehole to access drinking water, as the Tower is not connected to mains water, and it was licensed by the States of Alderney.
Concerns in Guernsey about the quality of airport run-off water emerged in 2007 and monitoring for Pfos by Guernsey Water then took place. Tests showed that levels in raw water run-off from the airport exceeded DWI tiers two and three guidelines – 0.3ug/l and 1ug/l respectively.
In Alderney, however, it was not until 2009 that residents were assured by the States of Alderney that testing had taken place and that mains water was safe to drink and Mr Flewitt’s borehole was tested some time before Christmas in 2009. The letter warning him that his water was ‘not fit for consumption’ was handed to him on 11 January 2010.
Mr Flewitt requested further testing at the borehole last December.
In May senior Environmental Health officer Cathy Rirsch wrote to him on behalf of the Office of Environmental Health and Pollution Regulation advising that water in his borehole still contained 11.9ug/l of Pfos.
Ten years ago it could have been even higher.
A 2012 Health Protection Agency study showed that the levels of Pfos in drinking water in Guernsey followed a slow downward trend over five years from a mean of 0.72 ug/l in 2007/8 to 0.5 ug/l in 2011, while those in Alderney remained relatively static in that period with a mean of around 0.45 ug/l.
Where Pfos levels of more than 9ug/l are detected the DWI advises that ‘consultation with local health professionals takes place as soon as possible’ and that action is taken ‘to produce exposure within seven days’.
Mr Flewitt is consulting solicitors about the matter.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.