Millersburg Back to Airstripping As Solution for Water
By NICK SABO
By NICK SABO
Staff Writer
MILLERSBURG — The village’s search for a clean water source has again turned to treatment of a contaminant plume after a proposed well field site failed to produce adequate flow rates.
Village Administrator Kevin Brooks said the village will present the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency with a plan using airstripping towers as a means to treat the contaminant plume, an idea originally floated to the EPA more than 2 1/2 years ago.
Brooks said the airstripping option is the best course to follow after a test well drilled in December at a well field site off county Road 349 was found to be inundated with fine silt that clogged the well’s screen and impeded water flow.
“The test well showed that we can’t get the water yield we need,” Brooks said. “What we need is 1,000 gallons per hour and we’re nowhere close to that.”
The site was chosen by Bill Ullom, with Vadose Research, after the supply of water in the area was found to meet, and even exceed, the village’s needs. The site was out of the path of the contaminant plume. But Ullom said the presence of the fine grain silt rules out the site as a viable well field.
“You can’t do anything about fine grain silt — the technology doesn’t exist out there,” Ullom said. “I was very excited about the site because there is plenty of water out there. But once we got the test well in, the flows just plummeted.”
The village spent about $100,000 testing well sites after the EPA rejected a treatment option for the plume, preferring instead to develop a well field. Brooks said the village has exhausted all potential well field sites.
“In a lot of respects, the time and money was money well spent,” Brooks said. “I think we have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that our only option is to treat the plume.”
The EPA ordered the village to find a clean water source after the plume was detected in the aquifer that serves the village’s primary water well. The contaminant plume is expected to reach the village’s current well field within five years, Brooks said.
The treatment plan proposed to the EPA uses a single tower at a site near the Holmes County fairgrounds that will intercept the plume and treat the water, discharging the treated water into the Killbuck Creek. Airstripping towers treat contaminated water using forced air and scrubbing materials that separate contaminants from water.
The project is estimated at $300,000, Brooks said. Developing a new well field was estimated at $2 million.
Airstripping towers were the village’s original choice to approaching the problem. But the EPA dismissed the idea in favor of developing a well field.
Ullom, who has served as a liaison for the village with the EPA, said he believes the failure to find a viable well field site will work in favor of the airstripping option.
“We have some very persuasive evidence to present to the EPA that this is the way to go,” Ullom said.
Reporter Nick Sabo can be reached at 330-674-1811 or e-mail nsabo@the-daily-record.com.
Originally published by By NICK SABO Staff Writer.
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