By Sylvie Dale, Online Editor
BOURNE, Mass., March 6, 2002 -- Officials are working to keep a Massachusetts town's drinking water safe from perchlorate after the chemical was found in monitoring wells within 1,000 feet of the water supply wells.
Traces of perchlorate have been found in three of the four monitoring wells located between the military base Camp Edwards and the Bourne Water District's supply wells, CapeCodOnline.com reported.
Perchlorate (ClO4-) is an anion that originates as a contaminant in groundwater and surface waters when the salts of ammonium, potassium, magnesium, or sodium dissolve in water, the EPA reported.
One major source of contamination is the manufacture or improper disposal of ammonium perchlorate that is used as the primary component in solid propellant for rockets, missiles, and fireworks. Perchlorate is not considered a carcinogen, but it can affect the thyroid gland, slowing metabolism and growth.
Although the chemical has not been detected in the Bourne water supply, military and town officials say the chemical is traveling west in the groundwater, toward the water supply wells, at a pace of about one foot per day. The monitoring wells which have tested positive for perchlorate contamination are about 1,000 feet away from the water supply wells.
Gov. Jane Swift just signed an order to protects the Camp Edwards military base land from further pollution. The law, which went into effect on Tuesday, permanently protects 15,000 acres of Camp Edwards, allows limited military training in parts of the same area, so long as it does not come at the expense of the environment, and provides for an environmental management commission to monitor daily operations on the base.
Despite the success of the law, military officials still must decide the extent of the damage; and Bourne officials still must decide how to avert problems in the drinking water from the advancing plume of perchlorate.
One option Bourne has may be to connect to the Upper Cape Water Cooperative, which provides 3 million gallons of water per day for the towns surrounding the military base. The water supply was created by the military after decades of pollution at the base, and most of the surrounding towns now are connected to the alternative water source.
The EPA just held a peer review workshop on its draft assessment, entitled "Perchlorate Environmental Contamination: Toxicological Review and Risk Characterization." The document is available at www.epa.gov/ncea under "what's new".
Appreciation of widespread contamination in the U.S. emerged in the Spring of 1997 when development of an analytical method with a quantitation level at 4 ppb became available. By May of that same year EPA was engaged in developing a targeted testing strategy to evaluate the potential human health and ecotoxicological effects of potential perchlorate exposures. The National Center for Environmental Assessment first released an external review draft in 1998 and recommendations for additional studies and analyses were made at a 1999 scientific peer review.
For more information, visit Cape Cod Online at http://www.capecodonline.com/. Cape Cod Online is a service of the Cape Cod Times, which can be found at http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/.
