SELAH, Wash. – Some residents near the Yakima Training Center have needed drinking water delivered to them after high levels of PFAS were found in the water almost two years ago.
The army has completed 22 water treatment projects to help solve the problem created by fire retardant testing at the training center.
Resident Lynn Mitzel said she tried to sell her parents’ former family home for about a year and had no offers due to the PFAS problem.
“We needed the money to pay for my mom’s care, and that’s why it was so important to push forward on it, to get it sold,” Mitzel said.
After her dad died, she said her mother moved out of the house for dementia care.
She asked the army if they had any way to move her parents’ home up the list for a water treatment system to help sell her home and pay for care.
At the end of April, contractors stopped by to put the system in the custom-made shed.
“After the filtration system was put in, we put it back on the market and sold it for over asking,” she said.
It took two days to get twenty thousand over the asking price according to Mitzel.
Now she’s getting one installed in her own home and said she’s excited to have her well water back.
“I love my well water and I love the taste of it and I’ll be so happy to have it back,” she said.
The army says the system will take two days to complete after modifying one of her existing lawnmower sheds with insulation and heating to keep the pipes from freezing in the winter.
They said the system will still need to be tested after the installation is complete.
“When the POET’s completely installed, we will continue to test it rigorously for about an 8-week period just to make sure it’s doing what it needs to do in filtering out the PFAS,” Yakima Training Center Garrison Commander, Army Lt. Col. Tim Horn said.
He said the army will continue to monitor it for a year or two after and fix or replace things as needed indefinitely to keep the treatment system working.
Mitzel said she’s relieved to know that she’ll be able to sell her own home when she’s ready and move closer to her kids across the state.
