State Investigating Rash of Contaminated Wells

By: Nathan Lamb

Environmental officials are seeking answers after discovering a potential carcinogen in 22 private wells at a Pennsylvania township, according to this story from the Norristown Times-Herald.

Representatives from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently met with Limerick residents to discuss remediation measures and update the community on efforts to isolate the source of trichloroethylene (TCE) in local groundwater.

The DEP is paying to install charcoal filters in five homes where TCE levels exceed health standards. Estimated cost of installation and the first two years of maintenance for that undertaking is estimated at $44,000.

No action is being taken at the other 17 homes, so long as TCE levels remain below the government health standard of five parts per billion.

All told, the DEP has tested 150 wells in the area of West Ridge Pike since 2010, according to this article from the Limerick Patch.

While the DEP has yet to determine a source of the contamination, its representatives reported finding highly elevated levels of TCE at the former site of a defunct heating equipment company off West Ridge Pike. That sample came back 832 times higher than the safe water standard, but DEP officials said groundwater at that site flows away from most of the contaminated wells.

TCE is typically used as an industrial degreaser and can cause a variety of short- and long-term health problems, according to this EPA fact sheet. Improperly disposed of, it can migrate through soil and contaminate groundwater.

Limerick has a population of roughly 13,500 and is about 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

PA Homeowners Face Environmental Covenants on Their Properties Because of Lead Contamination

By: Duane Craig

Property owners near Reading, Penn. got news recently that lead contamination left over from using old batteries as fill material will likely never be completely cleaned up. The affected area is on Mt. Laurel Road in Alsace Township. People who attended a recent town meeting about planned cleanup efforts also remembered collecting battery caps from the crushed carcasses of discarded batteries when they were children.

Samples taken at four residences showed elevated levels of lead, with one having concentrations seven times the acceptable limit. A nearby well also exceeded the acceptable levels of lead, however, an official with the Department of Environmental Protection said he thought that contamination was more likely from lead solder that was used in the plumbing system.

In 2011, property owners noticed what appeared to be battery casings in random places within their yards. The DEP investigated and confirmed the material was indeed battery casings. The agency took surface soil samples and confirmed the contamination at three of the properties. A check of surface water and stream sediment found no lead contamination.

Cleanup plans include excavating and removing the battery casing material as well as the contaminated soil. Following that, work crews will grade the area and plant grass. The cost of the project is expected to be $500,000.

Even after the cleanup is complete, the DEP said, the properties will still end up having environmental covenants on them that will alert future owners to the lead contamination history. You can read a news article on this topic here, and a statement from the DEP here.

Cabot Drills Into Notoriety

By: Duane Craig

Well, pardon the pun, Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. is in the news again as the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection investigates the problem of methane showing up in water wells in Susquehanna County. There is also some talk about a "bubbling pond" that contains combustible gas, although that is being disputed by the owner of the land -- a fellow who leased the land to Cabot so it could do some hydraulic fracturing there, or fracking.

Methane shows up in water wells

Cabot is being looked at because it is the company with the closest gas wells to the contaminated drinking water wells. Cabot's name was linked to the Dimock, Pennsylvania incident where a private water well exploded, ultimately making that community the poster child for the anti-fracking movement, according to this article in The Times-Tribune.com. Eventually Cabot was stopped near Dimock after the DEP linked gas in 18 water wells to its operations there. It's unclear how long Cabot will be allowed to continue drilling in Pennsylvania but the company has placed methane alarms in three homes near this incident and has vented its wells there to mitigate risks of contamination.

To see just how top-of-the-mind the environment is to Cabot you can read its 2010 annual report where its CEO writes for six pages about all levels of the company's operations but only gets close to any word remotely related to the environment, just one time. And that was to describe natural gas as an "eco-friendly fuel source."

Cabot made a net income in 2010 of a little more than $100 million.

EPA to Test For Nuke Waste Beyond Parks Township, PA Waste Dump

September 26, 2010 - The federal Environmental Protection Agency wants to determine whether there is any hazardous waste lurking outside the area of a Parks Township waste dump slated for cleanup by the Army Corps of Engineers.

At the urging of Patty Ameno, an environmental activist from Leechburg, EPA is investigating whether illegal dumping took place in areas other than the disposal trenches at the former waste dump along Route 66.

Known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area (SLDA), the 44-acre dump sits behind a razed plutonium processing facility, a sister site to the former nuclear fuel-processing plant in Apollo, owned by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) and its successors, the Atlantic Richfield Co. and Babcock & Wilcox (now BWX Technologies).

NUMEC and ARCO disposed of radiological and chemical waste from the Apollo plant into 10 trenches in Parks from 1960 to the early 1970s.

The EPA is reviewing site-related documents and photos to decide whether Ameno's concerns are warranted.

"We are reviewing and determining if further EPA action is necessary," said Roy Seneca, EPA spokesman for Region III in Philadelphia.

At least several incidents of off-site contamination have been documented and cleaned up through the years, but Ameno and a former NUMEC engineer believe there could be more.

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Monitoring Wells Being Dug at Superfund Site in Hereford, PA

September 24, 2010 - Bally isn't the only site of a new well in Berks County. Workers are drilling numerous wells in the area of the Crossley Superfund site off Huff's Church Road and Dale Road, which was also contaminated by the former Bally Engineered Structures company in nearby Bally.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, from the 1960s to the 1970s drums of volatile organic compounds were shipped to the site by BES where they were dumped in a pit. During an investigation of the area by the former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources in 1983, it was determined VOCs leaked out of the drums and into the aquifer, contaminating wells below Blackhead Hill with TCE.

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Bally, PA Residents Get Fresh Water From Tap After Seven-Year Wait

September 24, 2010 - The low hum of a water pump fills the small well house off Wheeler Lane. To borough residents who have been waiting seven years to get a glass of water from their faucet, it may be a joyful sound.

Since 1,4-dioxane was found in the municipal water system in 2003, residents haven't been able to turn on the faucet to grab a cold drink. At that time, Sunbeam Products Inc., which had purchased the Bally Case and Cooler site that was blamed for the contamination, began trucking in water for 1,000 residents. Other uses for the water, such as showering, were deemed safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Sunbeam will cease to truck in water starting Tuesday, Sept. 28.

To demonstrate the current water's safety, Mike Dietrich, a public works employee, drank a tall glass of the refreshment from the tap at the new well house. "Tastes great," he said Thursday morning.

Dietrich said while the well had been completed in August, the borough couldn't announce whether it was potable until the EPA finished weeks of testing.

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PA DEP Probes Methane Bubbles

September 8, 2010 - The state Department of Environmental Protection is investigating the source of methane gas that bubbled up in the North Branch Susquehanna River near Sugar Run and six private water wells in Wilmot Township, Bradford County, last week.

The sites are in the same general location as two other instances of methane contamination involving a beaver pond and a residential water well, and Chesapeake Energy is evaluating its natural gas wells in the area, according to DEP Secretary John Hanger.

"This is probably gas that has migrated through the ground as a result of drilling in the area," he said.

Reports of gas bubbling up from the North Branch Susquehanna River came in to DEP late Thursday, with additional reports Friday. Hanger said DEP investigators were at the site all day Friday and are "running some pretty complex tests to identify what kind of gas it is and its source."

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Environment Groups Cite Lansing, NY Power Plant For Coal Ash Pollution

September 9, 2010 - Near one power plant in New Mexico, sheep and cattle ranchers have reported losing hundreds of livestock who drank polluted groundwater. In a Montana town, people have been sickened by drinking water contaminated with high levels of sulfate and boron, the same metals discharged into groundwater by a nearby plant.

And in McAdoo, Pa., federal health officials have confirmed a rare bone marrow cancer cluster in a town near several plants and a waste dump, though federal officials haven't either confirmed or denied a link between the cancers and the plants.

These aren't incidents taking place close to natural gas drilling sites using new hydraulic fracturing techniques, but rather are near decades-old and still functioning coal-fired power plants, which provide roughly half of America's electricity.

One Tompkins County coal-based power plant, AES Cayuga in Lansing, was among 39 across the country cited by three national environmental groups in a new report on groundwater pollution caused by coal ash.

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Agency: Treat Valmont PA Groundwater

August 25, 2010 - A federal agency recommends treating contaminated water below ground at the Valmont Industrial Park rather than pumping it to the surface and then removing a carcinogen.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said underground treatment will save money and time in the cleanup of the cancer-causing chemical trichloroethylene or TCE. A study done during the past two years at the site shows that below-ground treatment can reduce levels of TCE.

Tests found TCE leaking into soil and groundwater from the former Chromatex No. 2 plant at Valmont in West Hazleton 23 years ago. Chromatex used TCE to attach stain repellent to upholstery and rugs. The company stored TCE in two tanks in the plant and caught spills in an underground tank, where a broken pipe was discovered.

Since the discovery, authorities installed water lines so people living near the plant wouldn't drink or bathe from contaminated wells. Contractors excavated 18,000 tons of contaminated soil and installed systems to vent 17 homes containing fumes of TCE. In 2001, the agency placed the site on its Superfund list, a register of polluted areas given national priority for cleanup.

Now the agency proposed a plan to treat the contaminated groundwater.

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DEP Announces More Limerick, PA Well Pollution

August 5, 2010 - The state has sampled the wells of nearly 80 homes in the northeast section of the township in recent months after samples from 21 wells were found to be contaminated with dangerous chemicals.

Tuesday night, residents of that area packed the Board of Supervisors meeting to hear officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection explain how they found out about the contamination and what they intend to do about it.

The area of contamination, which the DEP has labeled the Landis Creek project, is roughly bounded by Ridge Pike to the south, Sunset Road to the west, Graterford Road to the north and Township Line Road to the east.

It is separate and distinct from a contamination problem that made headlines earlier this year in the southern portion of the township. Two local businesses — Teleflex and the former Stanley Works tool plant — are believed to be the source of that previously revealed contamination.

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DEP Worried About PA Well Contamination

August 2, 2010 - The Department of Environmental Protection is testing the wells of more private homes in Plumstead Township, Bucks County, after tests showed that four wells are contaminated.

The problem is located, so far, on Ann Drive just off Stump Road, near the Plumstead Municipal Building. But the problem could be considerable more widespread than that.

So what is going on in Plumstead Township? On June 29th there was an enormous warehouse fire that, at the time, there was concern about chemicals inside. But on Monday authorities say they were non-toxic food additives.

But Stephanie and Rob Bradley, who live nearby, say something in the runoff of the fire has contaminated their well water.

"I went to mix a bottle for my son and noticed that the water smelled and had a color tinge to it," said Stephanie.

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PA Drinking Water An Issue In Marcellus Shale Debate

July 23, 2010 - Drinking water is one of the biggest concerns for people in the debate over Marcellus Shale drilling.

Bill Eakin, of Avella, says his once-pristine well water is now contaminated and that it has killed his garden and made him and his wife Shirley ill.

He blames the Atlas Energy Company which has been drilling for natural gas close by for the past two years.

"Oh, I know because me and my wife have been itchy all the time," he said. "Before when we drank it we had diarrhea and had rashes everything," he said.

Bill is not alone. More than 1,200 people crammed into a federal EPA hearing. Many are accusing the drilling company of contaminating ground water and the waterways.

Opponents want a moratorium on the mining of the natural gas-rich Marcellus Shale which lies about a mile below the ground.

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Tests in PA Confirm Contamination Near Old Fuel Leak

July 22, 2010 - Residents near a Susquehanna Twp. gas station where a 17-year-old fuel leak was never cleaned up weren't surprised to hear that levels of benzene and other contaminants appear to exceed acceptable levels in some spots around their homes.

But until the extent of the contamination is known, homeowners won't have a good idea what the cleanup will involve.

More than two dozen residents of Redwood and Alden streets, behind the gas station at Progress Avenue and Union Deposit Road, gathered at Progress Fire Hall Wednesday evening to learn the preliminary results of geologist Gary Calvert's probe into leaks from the station.

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State Officials To Test For Well Water Contamination in Northampton, PA

June 24, 2010 - The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will begin testing private wells next month for potential groundwater contamination in the western end of Northampton Township.

Based on information from the Bucks County Department of Health regarding trichloroethylene (TCE) groundwater contamination, township manager Robert Pellegrino said Wednesday the state Department of Environmental Protection is instituting its Hazardous Waste Cleanup program in the township.

The state DEP has been finding TCE in groundwater sporadically in Bucks and Montgomery counties. TCE, a degreaser or solvent, is used by industry and to keep septic systems from clogging.

"Because of this, it is important to remind property owners with private wells of the need to have their wells sampled privately every five years for the suite of chemicals known as Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, to ensure their drinking water supply is safe," said a press release from the township.

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Gas Driller Suspended Over Pennsylvania Contamination

April 15, 2010 - Pennsylvania environmental regulators have banned an energy company from drilling in the state until it plugs three wells believed to have contaminated the drinking water supplies of 14 homes in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The Department of Environmental Protection says Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. has failed to abide by the terms of a November 2009 agreement to help the residents of Dimock Township, Susquehanna County.Residents filed a federal lawsuit last year alleging that Cabot polluted their wells with methane gas and other contaminants, destroying the value of their homes and threatening their health.

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Environmental Issues Found on Pennsylvania's "Weatherly Trainworks" Site

March 14, 2010 - Cleanup continues on a historic property in Weatherly. The Rotary Foundation, the Weatherly Rotary Club and borough officials want to make the former Weatherly Trainworks ready for commercial development, according to Borough Manager Harold Pudliner Jr.

An engineering and environmental firm informed borough council at Wednesday's workshop meeting of contamination found at the site. Some soil contamination and some lead contamination were discovered.

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Northeast Pa. residents sue Houston-based natural gas driller over polluted water wells

November 20, 2009 - At a news conference Friday to announce the suit, residents described an ordeal that began shortly after Cabot started drilling near their homes. The water that came out of their faucets suddenly became cloudy and discolored, and it smelled and tasted foul.

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Pennsylvania Developer Builds on TCE

November 18, 2009 - The lone homeowner in a townhouse development once known as The Sanctuary said he doesn’t want anyone else to fall victim as he did, and he wants to know who in Wright Township is responsible for making that protection happen.

Nick La Rosa, who owns and lives in the only completed house in the development that has since been renamed Whispering Ridge, brought his concerns before the regular meeting of the township planning commission Tuesday night.

“There is TCE (trichloroethylene) in the underground water, and there is no question (the developers) knew it,” La Rosa said. “Who in Wright Township protects the interests of the residents?”

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Pennsylvania lawsuit says drilling polluted water

November 9, 2009 - A Pennsylvania landowner is suing an energy company for polluting his soil and water in an attempt to link a natural gas drilling technique with environmental contamination.

Water tests at three locations by gas wells on Zimmermann's property -- one is 1,500 feet (460 metres) from his home -- found seven potentially carcinogenic chemicals above "screening levels" set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as warranting further investigation.

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Water Contamination in Pennsylvania Neighborhood

September 9, 2009 - State officials are investigating a possible hazardous chemical contamination in Nockamixon. Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection is looking into elevated levels of trichloroethylene, commonly called TCE, in drinking wells near Route 412 and Route 611.

Agency scientists began testing wells at 16 homes along routes 412 and 611 last month and are awaiting completed questionnaires from those homeowners before further testing, said DEP spokeswoman Lynda Rebarchak. The DEP is working to investigate the contamination's severity, how far it has spread and whether there is an active pollution source.

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