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Monday, January 21, 2013

State Drilling Wells in Salisbury To Probe Contamination

State environmental officials are drilling monitoring wells on the outskirts of Salisbury to get a better handle on ground-water contamination there that has fouled dozens of household wells with a potentially cancer-causing chemical, according to a spokesman.

The Maryland Department of the Environment has contracted to install a total of 10 wells in the residential area south of the city to gather more information on the movement and severity of contaminated ground water, said Jay Apperson, the agency's deputy communications director.

Officials are still trying to determine the source or sources of the contamination, he said.

Of 227 private wells sampled on and around Morris Mill Road since the problem was first reported last summer, 68 have been found to have levels of trichloroethylene, or TCE, that exceed the federal safe drinking-water standard, Apperson said. Another 25 residential wells showed lower levels of the chemical.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could the contamination have come from when they built the bypass, granted its been along time and I surely don't know the time line on TCE filtering through the earths surface but this area sits right next to the bypass and I am sure they just dug and hauled dirt from many areas without doing the diligence on the sampling back then. Of course alot of these borrow pits could have been disposal areas back then too. I am not a scientist or with the MDE just a citizen with a thought.

Anonymous said...

I agree 9:31. Plus it had to be a lot of TCE to be dumped into the soil. All in one area as well. MDE needs to post a map or post these properties in a map and figure where it is coming from and ASAP. I bet someone probably dumped it in the pits or buried a ton of it.

Anonymous said...

try the damn dump

Anonymous said...

At least 60 years ago, as a kid, I remember a dump on Slab Bridge Road on the left. You could dump anything there ~~tires, oil, junk~~whatever. Close to this dump was a stream that ran by. I just wonder if this site has ever been thought of in the testing for the contaminated water. I'd be glad to show any of the people involved in testing exactly where the area is located..

Kenny Mills, Fruitland

Anonymous said...

As once said a long time ago by one of our many Governors - " The Eastern Shore is a Dump "

So Pick a spot, Downtown Salisbury where the NEW Fire station was a dump....

Glad Im not working there, they moved McDonalds twice at City's expense.

Anonymous said...

This is scary. I hope they find the cause and it is found quick. This is one of the few areas that I think govenment needs to be involved-insuring our water and air are pollutant free as possible. It's something we as individuals can not control. Unfortunately state government regulatory agencies are under the control of the governor and he's in bed with alot of big businesses that cause these kinds of situations so don't expect an answer nor a solution any time soon.