Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
The well was turned off in November, when contamination was found nearby. Testing has shown the pollution has moved away, an official said.
DOVER TOWNSHIP -- United Water Toms River plans to turn on a well in its parkway well field that has been shut off since November, when traces of groundwater contamination were found in a nearby monitoring well.
Frequent testing of the monitoring well since then has shown that the plume of groundwater contamination from the Reich Farm Superfund site has moved away from parkway Well 44, said Craig A. Wilger, Union Carbide Corp.'s project manager for the Reich Farm Superfund site.
Pollutants found in November in a monitoring well about 315 feet north of Well 44 are believed to have come from the Reich Farm site, a former poultry farm where an independent trucker dumped drums of Carbide's chemical waste in the early 1970s.
Traces of volatile organic pollutants, including trichloroethylene, trichloroethane and tetrachloroethylene, were found in the monitoring well located north of Well 44. Only about one-tenth of a part per billion gallons of each of the three chemicals was found in the monitoring well water, far below the maximum amount allowed in drinking water.
No contaminants were ever found in Well 44 itself, but because there is heightened concern about pollutants in the water here, Wilger asked the water company to shut the well down temporarily.
"We want to keep any contamination from Reich Farm away from the unprotected wells," Wilger said yesterday. He said Well 44 and the monitoring well will continue to be tested regularly to make sure the plume does not impact the drinking water system.
With Well 44 shut down for the past few months, the plume of groundwater contamination has been pulled back toward wells 26 and 28, which have continued pumping. Those two wells capture and treat most of the Reich Farm contamination.
Wells 26 and 28 have carbon filters attached that remove most pollutants. Water from the two wells is also treated with an air stripping system to remove additional contaminants, and then the water is pumped back onto the ground. The system has been used only rarely in the drinking water in the past 4 1/2 years.
March test results showed no trace of contaminants in the monitoring well 315 feet north of Well 44, or in another monitoring well about 500 feet north of Well 44, Wilger said.
Wilger said tests show that the fringe of the plume has moved north and a larger clean buffer zone now exists between the plume and Well 44. No traces of Reich Farm contaminants have been detected in samples collected from wells 22, 24 and 29, other shallow wells in the parkway well field that are used in United's drinking water system, he said.
Published on April 21, 2001
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