Wareham Water Completes Annual Ground Water Monitoring Report:
The Wareham Fire District Water Commissioners and SEA Consultants Inc. (S~E~A) will be presenting the 2009-2010 results of the District’s Annual Wellhead Protection Monitoring Program on Monday, October 18, 2010. The meeting begins at 6:00 p.m. at the water department office located at 2550 Cranberry Highway. The public is invited to attend.
Since 2001, the Water Department has run over 2,800 analytical tests of its groundwater supply for both regulated and unregulated contaminates. The results of the Wellhead Protection Monitoring Program indicate that the District’s drinking water supply meets or exceeds all drinking water standards.
The District, in cooperation with A.D. Makepeace Company, has installed a series of 13 monitoring wells around three well fields. The well fields, known as Maple Springs, Seawood Springs, and Southline are all located north of I-495 between Charge Pond and Glen Charlie Roads. Samples are taken twice a year from both the production and monitoring well sites.
Over nine years of sampling, several compounds have been detected at trace or very low levels in some of the wells. “Technology has improved our ability to detect contaminants down to fractions of parts per billion”, said Michael Martin, Superintendent for the Wareham Water Department. “At the levels reported, these compounds do not represent any threat to the water supply,” he said.
The sources of the compounds are related to existing residential and agricultural land uses, and in some cases naturally occurring in the environment. Of the 8 compounds that have been detected, only MTBE, nitrates, and chloroform are regulated at the state and federal level. Levels of these three compounds are well below drinking water standards.
In 2009, the District petitioned the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Research and Standards (MassDEP ORS) to prepare health guidance values for pesticides detected in Wareham’s water supply. The MassDEP ORS has determined that all of the pesticide results reported are below health protective guidance values and pose no unacceptable health risk to water customers.
The District spends approximately $50,000 per year on voluntary tests related to ensuring the quality of the aquifer.
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