Well-water Contamination-A Regulatory Failure

(The following was submitted by an SCC affiliate. Her statement precedes the article.)

"The more I read, the more I want to get our well water tested here in NC. Another thing we need to look into is how private well owners in Pittsylvania County – and across Virginia -- would be protected. Who would be responsible for monitoring those wells for years down the road if mining was ever allowed? I wonder if SCC can secure a grant to help homeowners in the proposed mining area get their water tested? Just thinking out loud…., but this is scary stuff!"

A right to know, a responsibility to act

by Hope Taylor

One by one, North Carolina communities are learning about the vulnerability of those who trust in the safety of the groundwater they use and officials who must protect their health and safety.

The Observer’s recent series on well contamination is perhaps the most comprehensive picture of the vulnerability of one county’s well users ever drawn out of agency files and into the public eye. From the failure to disclose contamination, to letting polluters off the hook for cleanups, to underfunded staff and programs for testing and monitoring, the experience of each impacted neighborhood shows how little protection current laws provide.

Clean Water for North Carolina, working statewide with communities near groundwater contamination, confirms what your reporters found: Some agency officials avoid notifying folks on wells near contamination, unless they have funds for a fix. That deprives well-users of information they have a right to.

Even our state’s wealthiest, most urbanized counties have tens of thousands of private wells and dozens of contaminated sites that aren’t cleaned up. The Bernard Allen Emergency Drinking Water Fund resulted from years of advocacy for a law to require notification of well users close to contamination, help test wells, and provide cost-effective replacement water.

We’re excited about working with Cumberland County’s new task force to call for much-needed changes to address the statewide failure to ensure safe water for over 2.7 million North Carolina well users.

With dozens of long-contaminated sites across the state waiting for help — including the Rim Road and Trimble Lane sites in your articles — even the small 2006 appropriation of $300,000 could have provided life-saving information to residents. It could have refocused regulatory efforts and alerted legislators and the public to the scope of the problem. That didn’t happen.

Instead, state officials spent the $300,000 on a two-mile line extension in an undeveloped area near Sylva, after finding contamination in a new well serving four mobile homes. The family using that well deserves to be in line to get help.

Calling this an “urgent situation,” officials placed this newly contaminated well and a high-cost “solution” ahead of notification and testing, or helping people impacted by long-neglected sites. Regulators knew about contamination near these homes for 15 years but never required a clean-up or notified nearby well-users.

This precedent for public spending shocked advocates, local officials and communities that had waited years for help. Long water line extensions are bad spending in sparsely populated areas, as they are expensive per household and encourage new sprawl and environmental impacts.
Advocates who worked hard to create the Bernard Allen Fund are pleased it is starting to be used at sites in Cumberland County and elsewhere. But $550,000 still remains of last year’s $615,000 appropriation, a worrying sign when the need is great.

Agencies need more staff to monitor contamination, provide door-to-door notification and develop a comprehensive statewide groundwater database. We need a larger fund to test wells near contamination, install new wells and hook up folks to public water or provide filtration systems until public lines are close.

North Carolina urgently needs a program that treats well users as though they have the right to safe water, too.

Hope Taylor, executive director of Clean Water for North Carolina, can be reached at hope@cwfnc.org or (919) 401-9600