Pall Life Sciences will begin digging a ground water extraction well
Aug. 11 in the parking lot of the Maple Village Shopping Center, the
company's attorney told a judge Monday.
The company will begin test pumping Aug. 25 to see if the spot is a
good one for pumping and treating groundwater from a deep aquifer
contaminated in the 1980s with 1,4 dioxane. If the tests show the site is
suitable, a second extraction well may be necessary in the Maple Village
parking lot.
Pall attorney Mike Caldwell said the spot appeared to be "fairly ideal"
for pumping the contaminated water.
The well will be part of a study that includes deciding on the best
option for disposing of treated water from the deep aquifer. Options
include re-injecting it into the ground or shipping it back to Pall's
headquarters near Wagner and Liberty roads in Scio Township, where treated
water from aquifers closer to the surface is already being released into a
tributary of the Huron River.
Pall is under court order to clean up a large plume of the suspected
carcinogen in ground water in west Ann Arbor. The deadline for getting the
1,4 dioxane levels below the state standard of 85 parts per billion is
July 2005.
Addressing both Pall representatives and the attorney for the state
Department of Environmental Quality, Judge Donald Shelton said he wanted a
comprehensive plan by February.
"The next time we meet, I want both of you to be able to come in here
and say we (have) the big plan, the feasibility study, and this is what we
ought to do," Shelton said.
Robert Reichel, attorney for DEQ, told Shelton that DEQ expected Pall
to have its feasibility study and a cleanup proposal or proposals finished
by Oct. 17. DEQ would then allow a period for public comment and a final
plan could be ready by February, Reichel said.
"What we anticipate is that there will probably be a (combination) of
approaches," Reichel said.
One of those may be a system that pumps ozone into the ground water.
The ozone would decontaminate the water.
After the hearing, Roger Rayle of Scio Residents for Safe Water
expressed skepticism about the promise of a comprehensive plan because, he
said, the extent of the contamination plume has not been precisely
determined.
Pall's predecessor, Gelman Sciences Inc. used 1,4 dioxane to make
medical filters and stored wastewater containing the contaminant in
unlined lagoons and sprayed it over lawns at its facility until the mid
1980s. The contaminant was first found in ground water in 1985.
Pall took over Gelman, and responsibility for the cleanup, in 1997.
Dissatisfied with progress, the DEQ took Pall to court in 2000 and Shelton
ordered the five-year deadline for completing the cleanup.
A previously undetected plume of the contaminant was discovered in a
deep aquifer in 2001 after a small amount turned up in a well used by the
city's water system. That well was then closed. The deep aquifer plume is
the one under the Maple Village Shopping Center.
John Mulcahy can be reached by e-mail at jmulcahy@annarbornews.
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