Quarantine zone for water sought

Zone would be part of Gelman - now Pall Life Sciences - cleanup

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

BY CHONG W. PYEN

News Staff Reporter

Michigan's environmental authorities are seeking to create a groundwater quarantine zone spanning central Ann Arbor as part of a contaminated groundwater cleanup program under way for the past two decades.

Although few groundwater wells are used within the city, the measure is necessary to protect human health and the environment, said Sybil Kolon, environmental quality manager at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

The DEQ, through the attorney general's office, has filed a motion in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, seeking a court order prohibiting groundwater use within an oval-shaped zone roughly bounded by Wagner Road on the west and Liberty Street on the south, stretching as far as M-14 to the north and the University of Michigan Medical Center to the east.

The order will be considered by Washtenaw County Circuit Judge Donald Shelton on March 23.

If approved by the judge, the order will:

Impose a ban on groundwater use within the prohibition zone.

Prohibit installation of a new water supply well for drinking, irrigation, commercial or industrial use.

Bar Washtenaw County health officials from issuing well construction permits within the zone.

The groundwater ban is part of an ongoing effort to clean up the aquifer tainted with 1,4 dioxine before the mid-1980s by Gelman Sciences Inc. of Scio Township. The firm is now known as Pall Life Sciences.

"We don't think people need to be alarmed about this," said Kolon, who serves as DEQ's project manager in the Pall cleanup project.

She said as long as migration of the plume is allowed, DEQ has to put in place an "institutional control" to restrict groundwater use.

In December, Sheldon approved Pall's proposed method of cleanup: a groundwater extraction, treatment and re-injection facility in the Maple Village Shopping Center area, coupled with an expansion of cleanup efforts already under way on Wagner Road.

The DEQ's proposed solution included a system of pipes under three to four miles of city streets, including several residential roads off Jackson Avenue, which most residents objected to. The DEQ had advocated for the pipeline system, arguing it would be more effective at reaching larger areas of the plume faster.

Shelton's order is what prompted DEQ to restrict the use of groundwater that is or may become contaminated to protect human health from the risk of exposure to remaining contamination, said Kolon.

Matthew Naud, Ann Arbor's environmental coordinator, said only a handful of township islands, perhaps a dozen residents within the city boundaries, may be affected by a groundwater ban in addition to possible wells used for irrigation.

Under court order, the medical filter-making company has been extracting contaminated groundwater for years while the plume of contamination has been spreading to the east, under the city of Ann Arbor, toward the Huron River.

The chemical 1,4 dioxane is a man-made solvent classified as a possible carcinogen.

The city of Ann Arbor has shut down one of the wells used to produce municipal water, located within the proposed prohibition zone. Known as the Northwest Supply Well, it used to produce about 2,000 gallons of water per minute, according to Naud.

Farsad Fotouhi, corporate vice president for environmental engineering at Pall Corp., Pall Life Sciences' parent company, said the company will contest the DEQ move. He said in a statement Tuesday:

"We think the state's proposed order is inconsistent with the judge's previous order in the state court case with respect to the Northwest Supply Well. We will be filing an appropriate response to the motion. The city has filed its own lawsuit against Pall for damages to the Northwest Supply Well, and Pall believes that lawsuit is the proper place to resolve the city's claim."

DEQ's order also seeks to force Pall Life Sciences to pay well users for the cost of connection to the city water system to replace drinking water wells quarantined, including the municipal well previously known as the Montgomery Well.

If the judge signs the order, Pall would be required to pay the cost of finding and installing another water supply source for the city's municipal water system which draws water from the Huron River and the aquifer.

"We have lost an important source of groundwater for Ann Arbor," said Naud. "We think DEQ appropriately put this order so Pall will find a new source of water and (pay for) all infrastructure. If Pall is not required to pay this cost ... this cost will be borne by Ann Arbor rate payers."