The Poisoned Well: New Strategies For Groundwater Protection

By Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund

The Poisoned Well offers vital strategies for citizens, community organizations, and public officials who want to fight the battle against pollutants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Island Press
• Release date: Jun 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781610913362

Book preview

Minnesota

INTRODUCTION

RESIDENTS OF COLUMBIA, Mississippi, learned that barrels of benzene left at an abandoned chemical plant were leaking and had contaminated the groundwater supplying their town with drinking water. Faced with this serious health threat, the citizens of the town pressured the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) into initiating a cleanup action.

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, people discovered that hazardous wastes were being injected into deep wells outside their town. Toxic contaminants were found in the regional drinking water aquifer. Citizens organized and forced some action at the site, but their fight to complete the cleanup continues.

In Massachusetts, an abandoned chemical pesticide plant caused the contamination of groundwater 60 feet below the surface, leading the town to close several drinking water wells. Local residents formed a citizens’ group, spread information about the problem, and with the assistance of a national group, worked with EPA to develop a long-term cleanup plan.

These are just a few examples of the countless stories from around the United States about groundwater contamination. Groundwater contamination is no longer an isolated problem limited to a few heavy-industry states. Groundwater contamination is everywhere—cases range from pesticides polluting groundwater in farm states like Iowa to solvents from storage tanks leaking into aquifers in California’s Silicon Valley. And because groundwater is such an important source of drinking and other water supplies—over 90 percent of the water used in rural areas, for example, comes from groundwater—contamination of groundwater can be a serious threat to human health. Pollutants commonly found in groundwater have been linked to illnesses ranging from bacterial infections to cancer. Individuals and citizen groups around the country are waking up to news stories about groundwater contamination in their own community and are beginning to worry about their health and their children’s health. The question is, what can people do to protect their families from groundwater contamination?

This book is designed to help citizens to help themselves. This book is based on the idea that the best way for citizens to protect their health is to go out and wage their own fight against groundwater contamination. People can make a difference if they know how to use the legal and other tools that are available to them. The primary focus of this book is advice about how to use the various federal laws and programs that can affect groundwater quality. There is no comprehensive federal groundwater protection scheme, but there are many laws and programs that can be used to protect groundwater quality. The discussion of these programs is directed toward the citizen who is neither a lawyer nor a scientist and it communicates the information about these programs that anyone who wants to use them needs to know.

We also recognize that often citizens can be most effective in dealing with local groundwater problems by working at the local level. As a result, we have included a substantial discussion of programs that are being tried by state and local governments and used by citizen groups to combat groundwater contamination. Because of the number and variety of such programs around the country we cannot cover them all, nor can we provide the sort of step-by-step advice that we offer in our presentation of federal programs. Instead, the state and local programs section of the book highlights some of the approaches in use and provides general suggestions for citizen action. It is up to the reader to take the ideas we present and investigate similar options wherever he or she may live.

All of the programs discussed in this book are similar in one respect. They provide only a framework for action. The laws themselves do not protect groundwater. It takes aggressive and effective enforcement action to ensure that the law is translated into clean groundwater.

Many people assume that government agencies alone are responsible for enforcing the law and providing the protection the law envisions; but all too often agencies do not fulfill their role. This inaction may happen for a variety of reasons ranging from budget shortfalls and meager staffs to agency policies or personnel opposed to aggressive enforcement.

Whatever the reason, when agencies do not do their job, citizens have to step in and do the work themselves. In the end, the laws and programs discussed in this book work only as well as you make them work.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

This book is split into four parts, each with a different purpose. To make the best use of this book, you need to know how it is organized. Part I contains basic information about groundwater, how it is contaminated, how you might be affected, and how to find out whether your groundwater is polluted. Read Part I to lay the foundation for the suggestions for action made in later chapters.

Part II describes in a general way the nuts and bolts of using the laws. It explains how to obtain information from the government, how to work with administrative agencies, and how to use the courts. It also provides some basic advice about organizing and using nonlegal political tools as part of an overall strategy.

Part III gives step-by-step advice about using specific federal programs. It is organized primarily by the potential sources of groundwater contamination, such as underground storage tanks or injection wells, but it also describes the programs generally applicable to a variety of potential sources. This part is the heart of the book and is designed to provide specific suggestions for action.

Part IV summarizes state and local programs. It is organized to parallel the structure of Part III, but it provides more general information about the types of state and local programs in existence and how citizens can use them.

To use the book, then, most readers will want to study Part I to gain an understanding of the basic problem and read Part II to learn about the basic processes they will become involved in and use. Parts III and IV can be read more selectively depending on the contamination problem in a particular locality. A reader concerned primarily about underground storage tanks, for example, should read the chapters devoted particularly to regulation of underground storage tanks under federal and state law (Chapters 19 and 30). Material describing general federal and state programs may also be helpful and should be reviewed (see Chapters 10 to 15 and Chapters 23 to 26). The other source-specific chapters, however, need not be studied, unless of course the reader discovers that the problem is broader or deeper than storage tanks.

PART I

GROUNDWATER AND CONTAMINATION

This part of The Poisoned Well provides the background information a citizen needs to implement the specific suggestions for action discussed in later chapters of the manual. This part begins with a brief introduction to groundwater—what it is and how it moves. Chapter 2 then explains how contaminants found in groundwater can affect your health, how those effects are measured, and how legal limits on contamination are established. Chapter 3 summarizes basic information about all of the major sources of groundwater contamination—what they are, what contaminants they produce, and how big a problem they create.

This part concludes with two chapters that will help citizens gather more basic information about the problem in their area. Chapter 4 explains how groundwater is monitored and tested, including how citizens can test their own water. Chapter 5 discusses techniques that can identify problem areas through the use of maps of groundwater and contamination sources.

Becoming an activist for groundwater protection means starting a continuing process of learning. The information contained in Part I will give the reader a solid foundation from which to begin taking concrete steps to preserve groundwater quality.

CHAPTER 1

Groundwater Basics

HYDROLOGIC CYCLE

WATER IS ALWAYS on the move. The sun evaporates it from oceans, lakes, ponds, streams, and the leaves of plants. It falls to earth as rain, snow, sleet, and hail. Gravity pulls it down to rivers and into the ground. Hydrologists call the total system the hydrologic cycle. (See Figure 1.1.) Groundwater is one of the less visible components of the cycle, but the global volume of groundwater is second only to the oceans and polar ice caps, and of all available fresh water in the United States, 96 percent is groundwater.

Groundwater is basically precipitation that has percolated down into soil and filled the spaces in the rock below in the same way that water fills a sponge. The first water entering soil from rainfall or snowmelt replaces water previously evaporated or used by plants during dryer periods. Some of this new water quickly repeats the hydrologic cycle: it evaporates, is taken up and transpired by plants, or runs off into streams. (See Figure 1.2.) Any remaining precipitation, or water that leaches from surface water bodies into the soil, travels through an upper portion of soil and rock that hydrologists call the unsaturated zone. While the degree of saturation varies with the amount of precipitation, the unsaturated zone is generally characterized as containing water and air in the smaller pores or spaces of rocks and soil. Any water in this area that is not left clinging to soil due to molecular attraction will drain from the unsaturated zone down to the water table. The water table is a seasonally fluctuating boundary between the unsaturated zone and the saturated zone. In the saturated zone the pores and cracks in rocks and soils are filled only with water.

AQUIFERS

Underground saturated rock formations that yield usable water are called aquifers. The minimum water content necessary to qualify a rock formation as an aquifer is a relative concept depending on the availability of other water sources in the region; what is one person’s rock may be another person’s aquifer. A geologic formation’s ability to yield water to wells is dependent on its porosity combined with its permeability. Porosity refers to the pores (spaces or cracks) in rocks, or the percentage of the rock’s volume that is not occupied by the rock itself. The quantity of water that any type of rock can contain depends on the rock’s porosity. Permeability refers to the degree to which underground pores are interconnected with each other, that is, the degree to which water can flow freely from one pore to another. The importance of permeability is illustrated by the substance clay, which, though it can have the same porosity as coarse gravel, will not be as good an aquifer as the gravel due to the clay’s lack of permeability.

FIGURE 1.1

DIAGRAM OF THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE

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FIGURE 1.2

HOW GROUNDWATER OCCURS IN ROCKS

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SOURCE: USGS, Groundwater, 1981.

Varying layers of permeable and impermeable materials in the earth create different types of aquifers. The most familiar type is the unconsolidated aquifer, in which water is contained in the spongelike pore spaces of sand and gravel (this is known as primary porosity). All unconsolidated aquifers are underlain by a layer of impermeable material—called an aquitard—that prevents the water from flowing further down into the earth. One subcategory of unconsolidated aquifer, called an unconfined or surficial aquifer, has an aquitard below but none above. Thus, water is free to percolate into the aquifer from the earth’s surface and the unsaturated zone.

The other subcategory of unconsolidated aquifer, called a confined or artesian aquifer, has aquitards below and above. The upper aquitard severely limits water from entering the aquifer from directly above; instead, water enters laterally by sideways motion through the aquifer. Because it is sandwiched between two layers of impermeable material, this kind of aquifer may be under great pressure, and may spurt substantially above the earth’s surface when tapped by a well.

In some areas unconsolidated aquifers occur stacked in layers, with an unconfined aquifer on top and one or more confined aquifers beneath it, as illustrated in Figure 1.3.

The second major category of aquifer is the bedrock or consolidated aquifer, which occurs in areas of nonporous rock that lacks the capacity to absorb water. In such an aquifer, water is not found in pore spaces, but rather in fractures or holes in the rock (this is known as secondary porosity).

FIGURE 1.3

DIAGRAM OF GEOLOGIC STRATA AND VARIOUS TYPES OF WELLS

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One example of a consolidated aquifer is a hard crystalline bedrock where the water resides in fractures or cracks. The well yield in such an aquifer will depend on the size and frequency of the water-bearing fractures intersected by the well.

Another example of a consolidated aquifer is karst limestone, which occurs in areas of soft limestone rock. As a result of millions of years of erosion caused by underground water flow, karst limestone formations have been cut through with a Swiss cheese network of fissures and holes, which, in some cases, are large enough to form underground caverns and caves.

GROUNDWATER AND CONTAMINANT MOVEMENT

Recharge and Discharge Areas

Any area of land allowing water to pass through it and into an aquifer is called a recharge area. Water moves from the recharge area through the aquifer and out to the discharge area. Discharge areas can be wells, lakes, springs, geysers, rivers, or oceans. The uniting of groundwater and surface water in recharge and discharge areas is extremely important. (See Figure 1.4.) Recharge areas are the conduits between surface contamination and groundwater supplies. (The reverse is also true. The discharge of contaminated groundwater may affect the more than 30 percent of our nation’s streamflow that comes from groundwater.)

In an unconfined or surficial aquifer, the recharge area is generally located immediately above and adjacent to the point at which drinking water wells have been drilled, so that pollution occurring near the wellhead can have a devastating effect on groundwater quality. By contrast, a confined or artesian aquifer is protected by an overlying aquitard and thus may be less vulnerable to pollution entering the ground near the wellhead. The recharge areas for such an aquifer can be located at substantial distances from the wellhead, making water quality vulnerable to the effects of faraway land uses. Recharge areas for bedrock and karst limestone aquifers can be located either near to or far from the wellhead, or both.

FIGURE 1.4

IDEALIZED PATTERN OF GROUNDWATER FLOW FROM RECHARGE TO DISCHARGE AREAS

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SOURCE: USGS, Hydrology of Stratified-Drift Aquifers and Water Quality in the Nashua Regional Planning Commission Area, South-Central New Hampshire, 1987.

FIGURE 1.5

PLUME FORMATION OF GROUNDWATER CONTAMINANTS

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Direction of Flow

The direction of flow from areas of recharge to areas of discharge is dependent on gravity, pressure, and friction. Generally, groundwater moves in response to a hydraulic gradient from points of high elevation and pressure to points of lower elevation and pressure. The high and low elevations must be taken into account over large areas of land, because groundwater flow does not correspond precisely with surface topography. The points of higher elevation usually serve as watershed boundaries, called drainage divides. Watersheds, also called drainage basins, are those areas of land which drain runoff water to surface water bodies. Aquifers are often found beneath the surface of drainage basins; the high elevations serving as watershed boundaries may also be aquifer boundaries.

If a pollution source contaminates groundwater, it most often affects only that portion of the aquifer downgradient of the site, that is the lower elevations and lower pressure areas, rather than that portion of the aquifer upgradient of the site. Tracking contaminant movement is not, however, always as simple as determining an upgradient-downgradient direction. Even in unconsolidated aquifers, where movement is most predictable, water can be diverted from its normal downgradient course by a deposit of impermeable material that obstructs flow. In bedrock or karst limestone aquifers, unpredictable flow patterns are the rule rather than the exception, and water will go wherever the often irregular underground cracks and holes lead it.

Speed of Flow

In unconsolidated aquifers, groundwater generally travels very slowly. Where stream velocity is measured by feet per second, groundwater velocity can be measured in feet or inches per day or year. Groundwater has a laminar flow pattern, meaning that it is subject to little mixing and follows distinctive paths; many contaminants entering groundwater will behave the same way. Such contaminants remain in concentrated masses called plumes, which resemble clouds or fingers, as illustrated in Figure 1.5. Unlike contaminants in surface water, contaminants in groundwater are subject to very little dispersion by mixing, sun exposure, temperature differentials, and variations in bacterial life-forms. Thus there is very little physical, chemical, or biological breakdown of contaminants on a short-term basis. The shape and concentration of the plume is dependent only on local geology, elevation profiles, physical and chemical properties of the contaminant, rate of pollution by the contaminating source, and modifications in flow from wells or pumping.

In karst limestone aquifers, flow is not laminar, but rather corresponds more closely with the flow pattern one might expect in a surface stream. This means that water can travel much faster than in an unconsolidated aquifer, reaching speeds as great as several miles per day.

Human Influence on Flow

The natural path of groundwater and its flow rate can change dramatically through groundwater well pumping. Wells will draw in groundwater and contaminants from all directions, and can substantially increase the flow rate. Wells actually create a false discharge area for contaminants and water.

FIGURE 1.6

CONE OF DEPRESSION

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FIGURE 1.7

AREA OF INFLUENCE

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The drawing-in action of wells creates a cone of depression around well sites. It is called a cone because, when the well withdraws groundwater, the water table surrounding the well lowers, creating slopes that become increasingly steep closer to the well. (See Figure 1.6.) The geologic characteristics of the aquifer and the rate and duration of pumping will affect the size and shape of the cone. For example, the cone will be much greater around large public wells than small private wells.

The land area above the cone of depression is called the area of influence. (See Figure 1.7.) Pollutants discharged within this area can have a devastating affect on the quality of water withdrawn by the well. The area of influence is an important recharge area for individual wells drawing from the surficial aquifer. Any pollutants discharged within the area will be pulled directly to the well. The closer the source of contamination to the well, the faster the contaminants will be drawn into the well. It is important to monitor possible sources of pollution within these areas as well as all other land uses. The area of influence will shift if, for example, a parking lot creates a relatively impermeable surface where there was once direct recharge; in such circumstances, land previously outside the boundaries of the area of influence will become important recharge areas for the well. (In karst limestone aquifers, the cone of depression and area of influence may be difficult to define; and in confined aquifers, pollutants released in the immediate vicinity of the well will not necessarily enter the aquifer).

REFERENCES

GROUNDWATER BASICS

American Chemical Society. Groundwater Information Pamphlet. Washington, D.C. 1983.

Concern, Inc. Groundwater: A Community Action Guide. Washington, D.C. 1984.

Conservation Foundation. A Guide to Groundwater Pollution: Problems, Causes, and Government Responses. Washington, D.C. 1987.

DiNovo, Frank, and Martin Jaffe. Local Groundwater Protection: Midwest Region. American Planning Association. Chicago, III. 1984.

DiNovo, Frank, and Martin Jaffe. Local Groundwater Protection. American Planning Association. Chicago, Ill. 1987.

Environmental Defense Fund. Dumpsite Cleanups: A Citizen’s Guide to the Superfund Program. Washington, D.C. 1983.

EPA, Office of Groundwater Protection. Overview of State Groundwater Program Summaries. Washington, D.C. 1985.

Feliciano, Donald V. Groundwater: What It Is and How It Is Being Protected. Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division, U.S. Congressional Research Service. Washington, D.C. 1985.

Gordon, Wendy. A Citizen’s Handbook on Groundwater Protection. Natural Resources Defense Council. New York, N.Y. 1984.

Patrick, Ruth. Groundwater Overview. Address to Third National Water Conference. Philadelphia, Pa. 1987.

Scalf, Marion R., James F. McNabb, William Dunlap, and Roger L. Cosby. Manual of Groundwater Quality Sampling Procedures. Environmental Protection Agency. Washington, D.C. 1982.

Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; Subcommittee on Toxic Substances and Environmental Oversight. Hearings: Groundwater Contamination and Protection. Part 1: June 17, June 20, July 16, 1985. Part 2: October 24, November 14, and December 12, 1985.

U.S. Geological Survey. Groundwater. Washington, D.C. 1981.

U.S. Geological Survey. Water Fact Sheet: Regional Aquifer Systems of the U.S. Washington, D.C. 1984.

White, Lyn. An Introduction to Groundwater and Aquifers. Massachusetts Audubon Society. Lincoln, Mass. 1985.

White, Lyn. Groundwater and Contamination: From the Watershed Into the Well. Massachusetts Audubon Society. Lincoln, Mass. 1985.

CHAPTER 2

Health and Groundwater Contamination

WE ARE ALL concerned about what contaminated groundwater can do to our health and our children’s health. As a society we have grown dependent on a myriad of potentially dangerous technologies and chemical substances, but it is only recently that we have begun to understand how our past and present handling of these substances could affect us for generations to come. It is alert citizens, not government agencies, who are usually first to realize that illnesses are occurring at unusual levels in their community, and who are first to begin the search for the cause. All the puzzle pieces start to fit together in a process that usually goes something like this:

First I heard about Barbara, and of course I felt real bad about it.

Not too long after that, I heard about Danny. I saw his wife, Donna, at the drugstore picking up a prescription. She told me Danny had brain surgery and lost part of his hearing, just like Barbara.

Then I remembered Beth Saner who died so young of cancer. And other things started happening little by little. It wasn’t long after that, that Sylvia Valdez was really sick with lupus.

I started inquiring. I heard about a lot of cases of lupus. It seemed that so many in our age group were coming down with cancer or other problems.

Being so close to Hughes and the Air National Guard, I thought maybe we were exposed to radiation, something being dropped in the desert that we didn’t know about. We talked about compiling a list and trying to find out what had caused it.

Then a couple of years later the story broke on the water, and I realized, Aha, this could be it.

I started remembering back about Linda Moore’s mother who died so young of breast cancer after I graduated from high school. Then a cousin on Calle Bocina had to have a hysterectomy at a very young age because of cancer.

She lived right across the street from Joe Burchell’s brother, who had died of leukemia. Laura Castro Urias, who had lupus, lived on Elvira, one street south of Bocina, and that was two blocks south of where Beth Saner had lived.

I think that’s odd. There’s just too many of them.¹

Melinda, the narrator here, was talking about the suspected effects of a common industrial solvent, trichloroethylene (TCE), in the public water wells of Tucson, Arizona. Five of the women who were pom-pom girls and cheerleaders with Melinda in high school 20 years ago had serious illnesses: brain tumors, lupus, multiple sclerosis, rare tumors, and arthritis. Melinda was not alone in her concerns. Other residents were turning the bits and pieces of information over in their minds, wondering what was going on.

Social worker Carol Roos almost went to the county health department years before she heard of TCE contamination, when she thought she had a third teenager with testicular cancer in her program. Testicular cancer is almost unheard of in young people. It’s very rare. When I looked it up, the most common ages were between 29 and 35. These kids were 16, she said. When the third case turned out to be a prostate problem and not testicular cancer, Carol decided not to seek help from the county health department. However, her concern over what could be causing an awful lot of childhood leukemia and other cancers did not end.

In 1981 Tucson was shaken to learn that its only water supply was threatened by toxic chemicals. Slowly the story unfolded to residents that for over 25 years Hughes Aircraft Company, in its work for the U.S. Air Force, had dumped toxic industrial wastes into the surrounding desert. The city’s aquifer was very vulnerable to contamination due to the highly permeable desert sands overlying it. More than four years after discovery of contamination in area water supplies, however, city, county, state, and federal officials continued assuring area residents that the water they drank was safe and that, by the time the water reached area homes, the TCE level was below the state’s guidelines. It took a six-month investigation by the Arizona Daily Star to learn that these officials were