| Ft. Meade Well Tests Show Pollution in Odenton, Annapolis Capital - Annapolis,MD,USA |
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Ft. Meade Well Tests Show Pollution in Odenton Army to investigate the extent of the contamination By JOSHUA STEWART, Staff Writer Published 03/22/09 Recent tests of well water near a landfill on Fort George G. Meade revealed three harmful chemicals that environmental officials say pose greater risks than previously believed. Buffalo Chicken Strips Receipe The discovery has sparked action to protect residents in nearby households in Odenton from drinking well water with the dangerous substances and prompted the Army to implement "interim measures" to limit contact with pollution. The military already has invested more than 10 years and $100 million into an environmental cleanup at the west county Army post. About $28 million is needed to finish the job. Previously, fort officials have said that environmental hazards at the post pose no immediate health concerns to any of the 30,000 people living and working on Meade - or to civilians living nearby. However, Environmental Protection Agency documents obtained by <i>The Capital</i> show the contamination and the risks associated with environmental problems are much more extensive than previously revealed and put not only people with business at the post in danger, but some families living in Odenton, as well. "Off-facility adults and children may be exposed to contaminated groundwater from" Fort Meade, according to the EPA documents. And the results of a water test conducted this winter have alarmed EPA officials, forcing the organization to intervene. "EPA has determined that consumption of the water sampled would pose an unacceptable risk to human health," an EPA official wrote in a letter to the fort's environment director. But so far, residents who live near the source of the contamination have not been alerted, even though the Army has had test results for nearly two months. Michael Butler, chief of the post's Environmental Division, said that they should be informed in a matter of weeks. Eventually, the Army wants to determine the full extent of the contamination by testing all wells in a 1-mile radius of the Odenton MARC train station. That includes test wells - holes bored into the ground solely used to collect water samples for analysis - and private wells that people use in their homes. Depending on the test results, homeowners with contaminated wells may be provided with bottled water. While the EPA said there is a risk to human health, Kerry Topovski, head of the Environmental Health Program in the county Health Department, said there is no imminent health risk. The fort intends to collect water samples for testing from an area larger than the county's investigation, Butler said. Something amiss An analysis of water samples collected near the Odenton train station, just outside the post's fence, reveals that some toxic substances are more than 10 times above allowable levels, post records from January show. This winter the Army collected water samples from two monitoring wells near the MARC station and found three substances - carbon tetrachloride, tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene - have moved into civilian territory. The substances, also called VOCs, are used for cleaning heavy machinery and have been linked to kidney and liver damage, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Carbon tetrachloride also can cause cancer in lab animals, according to documents from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a part of the CDC. "You're talking serious chemicals in the groundwater and we take our drinking water from" there, said David Tibbetts, a member of the Restoration Advisory Board, an organization that oversees environmental problems at the fort and how they are remedied. And there is the potential for airborne contamination, too. The chemicals buried at the fort are seeping from a landfill and into groundwater, up through soil and into the air, exposing people to possible liver disease and increased cancer risks, EPA documents show. To help curb air pollution, a ventilation system was built when the landfill was capped in 1998. At one point the installation planned to burn methane that also was seeping from the dump, but that proved infeasible. However, air-quality tests through that process revealed that VOCs levels in the air are not a threat. Today, methane leaks into the air through pipes installed at the landfill. Also, the chemicals can be absorbed through the skin if people use contaminated well water for bathing, said Dr. Virginia Weaver, an environmental health expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. When bathing, the substances can become vaporized, much like steam. They can pass through the skin as well, she said. The county Health Department began testing a handful of private wells in Odenton in 2005 after Meade officials raised concerns there could be a contamination issue. Testing was briefly stopped but was later reinstated last year. Since then, at least four wells have tested for hazardous substances, but the levels were low and not a problem, Topovski said. The contamination has been traced back to a landfill just west of Old Waugh Chapel Road that closed in 1996. Stepping in According to Fort Meade documents, the Army is in the beginning phases of investigating the extent of the contamination. The process itself will be handled by the military, but the EPA will have oversight, said Roy Seneca, an EPA spokesman. The first part of the plan involves sampling private wells within a 1-mile radius of the sample wells near the Odenton train station. Depending on the results of those tests, homeowners could be supplied with bottled water or water filters. Also, Army officials want to collect soil samples and test to see if people are at risk from the contaminants seeping into the air. County officials are in the process of creating for the Army a list of private wells in the area, the first step in beginning an investigation into the extent of the contamination, Topovski said. The Army's research is scheduled to be finished by the end of August. From there it will determine what, if anything, needs to be done to protect public health. People who live and work near the Odenton station said they had no idea that something so close to their homes or offices posed any sort of risk. "They never told me anything," said Jim Temple, whose office overlooks the station's parking lot. His business uses wells, but he only drinks bottled water from a cooler, he said. Stella Lowman, who lives nearby on Nevada Avenue, also said she was unaware of the contamination. "They should have told us. We're not on the (public) water line," she said. Topovski, of the county Health Department, said Temple and Lowman aren't at risk from groundwater contamination because the underground rivers their wells draw from are upstream from the source of the contamination. And typically, homeowners' wells are dug to much more shallow depths than where this pollution lies, Butler said. Fort Meade likely will have to monitor pollution coming from the landfill for "another couple of decades." But in the immediate future, the installation will check wells nearby for pollution and provide bottled water if there are problems. In the next 18 months there should be a plan in place to address long-term issues, like how to remedy the contamination, Butler said. More pollutants The recent water samples are the latest development in the fort's long history of environmental problems. Parts of the installation were added to the National Priorities List in December 1999, designating them as places that would receive special attention for removing environmental hazards. Besides the three substances found in the wells this winter, there were heavy metals, explosives, arsenic and polychlorinated biphenyls, a known carcinogen. Periodically the Army sweeps parts of the fort and finds active munitions, and visitors to the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge, a nature center that the fort once used for training, must sign a legal waiver, limiting the military's liability if someone stumbles upon an old ordnance. There have been problems near the post's Manor View Elementary School, as well. While building military houses in 2003, a contractor doing excavation work found a dump from the 1940s on the school's grounds. Methane leaking from the dump created an explosion risk. The methane forced the evacuation of 20 homes on the post and they sit empty to this day. Also, while the source of the methane was investigated, outdoor activities at the school were suspended. A trench and ventilation system diverts the methane away from buildings and today Manor View Elementary operates as usual. While the fort has been on the Superfund list for more than a decade, the cleanup process was stalled as EPA and Army officials disagreed over which laws applied. In December, the Justice Department announced the military had no legal authority to ignore the EPA's demands. Shortly thereafter, Army officials said they would complete the cleanup. The state also has become involved by suing the Army in December after the Justice Department announcement. "I think that the Army has given all indications that they will be cooperative for this," Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said after the lawsuit was filed. "The problem is this 'we'll get to it' sort of attitude. In the meanwhile, we have contaminated water in our state." |
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