Copyright 2002, 2007, The News-Dispatch, All Rights Reserved.
| February 7, 2002
Jeff Tucker |
| The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has requested the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency add The Pines to its National Priorities List for possible remediation though the federal Superfund program.Inclusion on the list is the first step in gaining federal aid for cleanup efforts of contaminated sites. Indiana has 28 sites on the list, including the Waste Inc. Landfill in Michigan City, the Fisher-Calo site in LaPorte and the Cam-Or site in Westville.Ground-water sampling was conducted throughout The Pines in 2000 and 2001 after IDEM's Drinking Water Section received a complaint from a resident of The Pines in April 2000, IDEM spokesperson Keri McGrath said."I'm the one that initially contacted IDEM," said Phyllis DaMota of Walnut Street in The Pines. "I don't know what it was, but I detected a faint odor."I had had my water tested before I bought my home in 2000 and the results came back that the water was fine. So I wasn't as concerned about the odor, but I was still curious about it. That's when I contacted IDEM. They were very prompt in their response."IDEM found nine residential wells and one unused commercial well contained elevated levels contaminants, McGrath said Wednesday.She said one well had elevated levels of nickel, three wells had elevated levels of lead, one well had elevated levels of both lead and benzene, two wells had elevated levels of benzene, one well had elevated levels or arsenic and one more well had elevated levels of methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, a petroleum constituent."The majority of the contamination lies east of (Indiana) Highway 520," McGrath said. "If we found wells with contamination, then we tested their neighbors."IDEM has provided filters to those homeowners whose levels of contaminants exceeded safe drinking-water standards established by the EPA, McGrath said. IDEM will monitor the contaminated wells and maintain those filters.DaMota was one of those nine homeowners who received a filter. She received hers in the summer of 2000."I'm comfortable knowing my water is clean because I've had many rounds of testing, both the raw water and the filtered water, and the filtered water consistently comes back clean," DaMota said. "So the system is working well."The source of the contamination has not been determined, IDEM said.However, further testing on the town's ground water conducted by private organizations has yielded some clues, DaMota said."According to some preliminary analysis of the ground water, many of the contaminants that have recently been discovered through this expanded round of testing have been indicative of coal ash contamination," DaMota said. "Now we have a little more confidence that we're a strong candidate for a Superfund site than in the past, since we have a lot more information that there is a viable health risk."DaMota attended The Pines Town Council's monthly meeting Wednesday night, requesting that town officials draft a letter to IDEM requesting a forum to inform residents of recent ground water and soil sampling."We're still going to request some more testing. We're not done," DaMota said.Town Council president Dolores Voss said Wednesday night she has attempted to contact IDEM for more information about the extent of the contamination, but she has yet to hear from IDEM. She said the town council only knew of three contaminated wells prior to Tuesday's announcement by IDEM that it was requesting federal assistance."The townspeople seem to know more about the problem than the council does," Voss said. "I've got a call into IDEM and everything is on hold really. The council has been aware of the problem, but IDEM has escalated the amount of wells contaminated."If the federal government wants to come in with a Superfund and take care of some of the so-called problems, that would be great. I'm saying so-called because I don't know the extent of the problem. We're going to be looking into the situation as a council." |
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Copyright 2002, 2007, The News-Dispatch, All Rights Reserved. |