Continuing coverage
This newspaper has closely followed ongoing developments related to the contamination of two water wells at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base since May. We’ll continue to bring you the latest news on this issue.
Wright-Patterson has a plan to install about 50 additional groundwater monitoring wells this fall after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency reported the sprawling base has “data gaps” in a monitoring well network that leaves it unable to fully track where contaminated groundwater might flow, authorities say.
The Ohio EPA will meet with city of Dayton and Miami Conservancy District officials to work out details to make sure a contamination plume that shuttered two drinking water production wells on base and led to a health advisory for pregnant women and infants in Area A isn’t moving toward other drinking wells, officials said.
The city of Dayton stopped drawing drinking water out of seven production wells at Huffman Dam near the base boundary as “a precautionary measure” in June, a city official said. Authorities have stressed that water tests have shown two contaminants of concern found in a fire suppressant foam were not detected in city production wells or a distribution system serving 400,000 customers.
“We place a high value on the aquifer and when we have contamination issues like this we want to see them addressed and managed in a way that public health is protected and resources sustained,” said Michael Ekberg, Miami Conservancy District manager of water resource monitoring.
The conservancy owns the land from which the city has pumped water at Huffman Dam, he said.
The two contaminants causing the most recent concerns — perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) — were found at levels that exceeded U.S. EPA threshold levels set in May of 70 parts per trillion.
Concerns over groundwater contamination have reached high-level talks at both Wright-Patterson and the Ohio EPA. Last week, Ohio EPA Director Craig W. Butler and Col. Elena Oberg, vice commander of the 88th Air Base Wing, met to talk about contamination issues, officials said.
Monitoring wells act as key sentinels to determine a plume’s boundaries because the “data gaps are the missing pieces in the monitoring network to make sure the contamination present in the groundwater is being effectively monitored to ensure it will not impact other production wells — either those at (Wright-Patterson) or Dayton,” James Lee, an Ohio EPA spokesman, wrote in an email.
Where is it headed?
There are no monitoring wells on the west side of the base between an area of contaminated groundwater and the Mad River “and there are no wells further down the boundary to determine how far this contamination has traveled,” Lee said.
“Additional samples need to take place in order to make that determination definitively,” Lee said in an interview.
The base is working to secure funding for more monitoring wells “to minimize any gaps in the data and ensure the water both on and off base remains safe,” Wright-Patterson spokeswoman Marie Vanover wrote in an email. “Wright-Patterson is committed to being a responsible steward of the environment.”
Adding monitoring wells would be a diversion from Wright-Patterson’s requested plan more than a year ago to remove up to 175 monitoring wells by 2019 out of a network of more than 500 in locations they were deemed not to be needed.
Lee said the status of monitoring wells is an ongoing discussion between the state and the base. Vanover said the decision to close wells is reached on a case-by-case basis and no monitoring wells were shut down this year.
In June, four of 16 monitoring wells sampled at Wright-Patterson showed PFOS and PFOA levels above the threshold, according to Ohio EPA data. The compounds were found in aqueous film forming foam, a chemical fire suppressant firefighters sprayed for decades in training exercises on base and to fight fires.
U.S. EPA has indicated the suspected compounds could have adverse health effects on fetuses and bottled-fed infants. Wright-Patterson imposed a drinking water advisory in May in Area A for pregnant or lactating women and infants. Tap water is safe for others to drink, authorities have said.
In June, tests of the drinking water distribution system in Area A showed all samples were below the health advisory level “and we are evaluating the possibility of lifting the water advisory for Area A,” Vanover said.
The base has offered bottled water to women, bottled-fed infants and to patients at Wright-Patterson Medical Center since May.
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