EL PASO COUNTY — An El Paso County community just secured grant money from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. (CDPHE)
The Wigwam Mutual Water Company has been working to secure funding to try and treat the water, which has unhealthy levels of "PFAS" or Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
PFAS are also known as "forever chemicals" and have been linked to health issues including cancer and birth defects.
News5 first reported the PFAS levels at unhealthy levels in March, back then community members were hoping to get funding to provide water filters to its residents.
The filters hold about a gallon of water, according to community member Liz Rosenbaum, and are similar to other filters found in people's homes. The difference is the filters have stronger filters to make PFAS undetectable.
CDPHE said the grant totals $110,500.
PFAS were detected in 2016 in southern El Paso County, other nearby communities such as Fountain received funding for a water treatment plant. The plant is expensive and is something community members in Wigwam hope to see in the future.
"This is a great solution that is temporary that wasn’t available when all of this happened in 2016,” Rosenbaum said, "these have specific [granular activated carbon] GAC filters in it to take out PFAS chemicals which are very very tiny."
Rosenbaum said there's about 400 homes in the Wigwam area, which is southern El Paso County.
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