On Friday, officials at the Department of Environmental
Protection have ordered Lewis Run Borough officials to not pump
water from a disputed water well to prevent contamination in water
supplied to residents.
They have also ordered the borough to give the department access
to the well so that it can be plugged to prevent further use.
“We still owe $225,000 on that well, it won’t be paid off until
2017. If they want to pay a ‘half million dollars,’ they can do
what they want with it as far as I’m concerned,” said Borough
Council Chairman Frank Langianese Friday evening. “Personally I
don’t think they have a right to shut it down. It is not
contaminated.”
DEP officials asked the borough to discontinue use of the well,
which had been drilled by the borough in the mid-1990s, because of
its potential to draw up contaminates that were discovered during
real estate transactions that occurred more than a year ago.
The borough did discontinue use of the well as they had two
other wells to rely on as backups should they be needed to supply
their residents with water. They usually supply their residents via
a spring.
After the potential for contamination was found, the DEP started
drilling a well for the borough which remains incomplete today due
to funding and right of way access to the well site. That fourth
well was drilled with funds from the Hazardous Sites Cleanup
Program.
Since then, the two other wells Lewis Run residents and
officials have been relying on to supplement the spring that feeds
the borough have been found to be contaminated with benzene, a
carcinogen and component of gasoline. The source of the benzene is
not known.
In a press release on Friday, DEP Northwest regional director
Kelly Burch said, “Lewis Run recently informed us that the borough
expects to pump water from the well sometime this week because the
sole water source of the Lewis Run system, a seasonal spring, is
beginning to dry up.”
Well #3 is to be plugged and decommissioned under a 2003
Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act Record of Decision due to groundwater
contamination concerns. When DEP recently requested access to
borough property to begin the plugging process, Lewis Run officials
refused, added the release.
“Pumping of the well is unnecessary and would be imprudent,”
Burch added in the release. “The only thing standing in the way of
Lewis Run receiving a safe and adequate supply of water through the
interconnection is completion of a water service agreement.”
At this time, the borough of Lewis Run can connect with the City
of Bradford Water Authority because of work the DEP had completed
by a contractor using funds from the Hazardous Sites Cleanup
Act.
However, they remain unconnected because the borough must first
sign an intermunicipal agreement. At their last meeting on June 15,
officials planned a special meeting for taking a look at the
ordinance before signing. That meeting is scheduled for June
27.
Langianese said Friday that the order from the DEP came about
because he called them to tell them that the borough needed to use
well #3 because their spring was drying up.
He said he called Kim Benjamin, executive director of the Water
Authority, on Monday to ask him if the borough could hookup to city
water this past week. Langianese said Benjamin said they could not
hookup to the interconnection until the intermunicipal agreement
had been signed.
A call to Benjamin for response was not returned before press
time Friday.
Langianese said he then called the DEP telling them that he
wanted to hook up well #3 because he would not let his residents
run out of water.
Borough officials believe that the cost of hooking and using the
water from the Bradford Water system should come at the cost of the
DEP since they have not yet completed work on the fourth well.
Freda Tarbell, northwest regional office community relations
coordinator for DEP, said in a past interview that the borough
could pursue the “responsible parties” to recoup some of their
expenses of hooking up the new well (#4 that the DEP drilled) to
the borough or pay for it themselves and seek reimbursement from
the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program.
To this Langianese asked Friday, “Why when Mike Bradley (from
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources and
Conservation Service) said he could help us with funds did the DEP
say ‘we don’t know if you can hook it up’?”
“They were going to let us use it when they drilled it,” added
Langianese. “Why would you poke a hole in the ground and walk
away?”
On June 14, Tarbell said the most important action Lewis Run
Borough officials can take is to supply their residents with safe
drinking water.
“These other issues (with wells one, two and four) will take
time to sort out,” she added.
The borough wants to supply their own residents with water to
keep the costs down. At last report, residents of the borough could
expect to pay as much as $2 per 1,000 gallons of use of city water
when they previously paid 60 cents from the borough.
DEP’s order also requires Lewis Run to operate and manage the
remaining approved drinking water sources to ensure that the water
supplied to customers meets federal and state drinking water
standards, particularly for benzene. This means increased
monitoring of the water supply for volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) said the Friday release.
Additionally, the order directs Lewis Run to formalize in a
timely manner a water service agreement for the operation of the
interconnection with the Bradford water system adds the
release.
Borough officials are also angered that they continue to pay on
a PennVEST loan they had to use to drill the third well that is not
usable due to contamination potential.
When the potential for contamination was discovered, the DEP
went after the potential responsible parties. To date there has
been only one found; McCourt Label finalized an agreement with DEP
in September 2005.
