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With MUD Set to Start Pumping October 1 from Wells Bordering a Military Superfund Site
Both the safety of the Metropolitan Utilities District’s new well field and the credibility of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were hot topics at an Omaha news conference July 30. With MUD reportedly scheduled to start pumping from its new Platte West well field the first of October, State Senator Don Preister, retired Saunders County Attorney Thomas Jaudzemis, aquatic biologist Marian Maas, and Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) member Lorus Luetkenhaus sought to alert area residents about the dangers the military Superfund cleanup site at Mead, Nebraska poses to the safety of Omaha’s water supply. The following article reprinted from the August 9, 2008 Bellevue Leader newspaper does a good job of laying out the public safety issues involved, and some of the political concerns over the Corps’ conduct in directing the Superfund cleanup and granting the well field permit to MUD.
As Sen. Preister noted in his comments at the news conference, “Here’s what needs to happen to protect the public: First, the Corps of Engineers — both the Omaha and Kansas City Districts — should meet immediately with the RAB in a legal public meeting and continue to meet on at least a quarterly basis. The Corps — a governmental agency which has responsibility for both cleanup of the Superfund site and for MUD’s permit — must provide factual information to the public and be accountable for its decisions. Second, MUD should not operate the new well field until officials know for certain how far east the Mead site contamination extends and the Corps demonstrates to EPA’s satisfaction that the contamination is actually contained.”
Group Discusses Potential Water Contamination
A group of concerned citizens believe groundwater contamination in the area of the new Metropolitan Utility District’s Platte West water plant well field could threaten the drinking water supply for Sarpy and Douglas counties.
State Sen. Don Preister of Bellevue added his voice to a call for action from the agencies involved. Preister and the group, called the Restoration Advisory Board, met last Wednesday at the W. Clarke Swanson Library, 9101 West Dodge Road.
“Very soon MUD is planning to begin full-scale operation of high-powered wells in its massive new Platte West well field located in western Douglas County,” Preister said. “If MUD begins full operation at this time, it will place the drinking water of the Omaha area at risk.”
The group said the reason for the alarm is the presence of massive quantities of uncontained toxic chemicals that contaminate about 23 million gallons of groundwater two miles from the well field at the Mead Superfund site.
They are referring to the former Nebraska Ordinance Plant located in Saunders County near Mead. According to Environmental Protection Agency and Corps reports, the 17,000-acre location has massive soil and groundwater contamination. They list more than a half dozen different types of noxious waste including trichloroethylene (TCE), cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX), lead, benzene and even radioactive waste. It was designated a Superfund site by the EPA in 1989.
Cancer bioassays performed by the National Cancer Institute show that exposure to TCE is carcinogenic. RDX was used in one of the first plastic explosives and is toxic as is benzene and lead.
Making matters worse is the fact that, at this time, no one knows how close the contamination is to the well site. Currently, the main contaminant being monitored is TCE, a chlorinated hydrocarbon commonly used as an industrial solvent. The EPA has identified three large plumes of TCE moving through the groundwater in a southeasterly direction.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit to MUD in 2003 under the assumption that contamination at the Superfund site is contained. Preister said that in August 2007, the Corps of Engineers stated publicly that it was surprised to discover the site contamination was not contained as previously believed. The Corps identified three areas of concern, one of which is very near the new well field.
“We now know the threat is not actually contained and it is clear the Corps doesn’t know how far east the contamination extends,” he said. “In light of this, it is far too risky for MUD to operate its massive new well field at this time.”
The MUD Platte West water plant well field is scheduled to open Oct. 1. It has 42 wells that will draw a reported 54 million gallons of water a day from the Platte River basin region. This suction effect causes, what Preister called, a cone of depression in the water table. He and the group fears this depression will draw the contaminated water from the nearby Superfund site and pump it into the Omaha water supply.
Preister said he was also troubled by the Corps of Engineers’ response to the situation.
The Corps of the problem
“The permit issued to MUD by the Corps in 2003 acknowledges that the pumping could cause the contamination to move and get into the drinking water,” Preister said. “Instead of instructing MUD to delay operations until the toxins are contained, they are allowing MUD to proceed.”
That is because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers believes there is no problem.
Rodney Schwartz, the Corps’ senior project manager who handled the MUD permit, said the tainted Mead groundwater and the area nearby that the contaminants spread to are both downhill from the MUD well field. At the rate MUD is allowed to pump, Schwartz said, it would be impossible for the contaminated water to reach the plant.
But that doesn’t jibe with a U.S. Geological Survey report by noted hydrologist J.O. Helgesen that states water moves generally eastward and northeastward from recharge areas toward discharge areas in eastern Nebraska and along the Missouri River in northeastern Nebraska. Still, MUD believes what the Corps has told them.
MUD-dy waters
MUD spokeswoman Mari Matulka says the utility, having been given the go-ahead by the corps, sees no reason to delay opening the plant.
“The Corps will continue to monitor what’s going on,” Matulka said. “They’ll let us know if there are any problems. And if there are, they will be corrected.”
The problem with that approach, Preister said, is that there are no monitoring wells east of the uncontained contaminant plume. This would make it impossible for the Corps to find out if the toxins have moved closer to the wells. [Editor’s correction: Sen. Preister actually stated at the news conference that while there are a few monitoring wells east of the uncontained contamination plume, they are insufficient in number and not properly placed to warn the public adequately when toxins move east in the groundwater.]
“It is very troubling that the Corps continues to refuse to test all the residential wells in the vicinity of the eastern plume,” said Marian Maas of Bellevue. Maas is an aquatic biologist who did the groundbreaking work for the study of the eastern Nebraska watershed.
“The public does not have a network of monitoring wells that could serve as an effective early warning system to alert them when MUD’s pumping draws the contamination farther east.”
The Environmental Protection Agency has stayed out of the fray as it has adopted a “wait-and-see” approach to the issue. That isn’t sitting well with the group either.
“Neither the state nor the EPA has conducted a study of the effect of MUD’s maximum pumping [reported to be at 160 million gallons per day] when the stream flow in the Platte River is low,” said Thomas Jaudzemis, former Saunders County Attorney. “Neither have they conducted any independent groundwater modeling related to the Mead Superfund site toxins.”
The well fields, which supply the new Platte West Water Treatment Plant at 216th and Q streets, mark a tremendous investment for MUD and serve as an economic growth engine for the metro area. The new facility will extend the length of three football fields and cover a total of 630,511 square feet. As of June 30, the contractor has completed $234 million of construction, representing 99 percent of the total contract value.
With that in mind, it is not sensible from either a scientific perspective or a cost perspective to rely on MUD to treat the Superfund toxins at its new plant so that the water is safe to drink, Maas said.
Even if MUD could detect toxic chemicals in the massive quantities of water that would be flowing through its system, it isn’t clear that any municipal water treatment system could remove the type of toxins found in the groundwater from the Mead site, she said. Sophisticated testing for a vast array of chemicals would have to be conducted 24 hours a day, seven days a week by qualified personnel, and that cost would be prohibitive.
“In addition, because safe drinking water standards have not even been developed for many of these toxins, we don’t know whether treatment by MUD will actually render the water safe to drink,” Maas said.
