Chemical detected during well drilling at Fort Detrick Deemed Unhazardous

Gazette.Net
Maryland Community News
Published: Monday, November 21, 2011

Preliminary testing has revealed that the release of a carcinogenic dry-cleaning chemical during well drilling at Fort Detrick last week was not enough to be hazardous, according to Detrick attorney Gary Zolyak.
Well drillers at Fort Detrick stopped work on Nov. 16 after detecting an odor that turned out to be tetracholoroethene, known as PCE, used commonly as a dry-cleaning solvent.
Water and air samples were sent to an independent laboratory by the drilling contractor, according to Detrick spokesman Robert Sperling.
“It’s no big deal,” Zolyak said. “The smell did not make it more than 10 feet from the well, and did not go beyond the property line.” The work is being done on the base near Kemp Lane and Shookstown Road, and the well is about 20 feet from the property line.
A contractor was drilling a monitoring well in a landfill as part of the cleanup effort at Area B-11, a part of the base that served for decades as the dumping ground for biological, chemical and radiological waste. PCE and tricholoroethene (TCE) found in groundwater on and off base were identified above the Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Act maximum contaminant levels in 1992.
Waste in the landfill includes metals, wood, animal refuse, acids, chemicals, herbicides, insecticides, phosgene, and animals potentially contaminated with anthrax.
William Hudson, a community involvement coordinator for the EPA, said he did not expect water or air contamination at levels that would be harmful for humans to ingest, and that the discovery of the chemical is part of the drilling process.
“It’s a very common occurrence when you are drilling monitoring wells,” Hudson said. “Every now and again when you drill in the ground, you do get some odors.”
The area was named one of the nation’s most contaminated sites by the EPA, and it was added to the “national priorities list,” or Superfund, for cleanup in 2009. The U.S. Army is charged with cleaning it up, and as part of that job is monitoring the flow of the groundwater from the fort.
To conduct those tests, the Army has been digging monitoring wells. The Army will continue to sample groundwater, surface water and sediment from Area B and determine where groundwater is flowing.
The drilling contractor did what he was supposed to do last week, according to Hudson, by stopping work immediately. The contractor has equipment, he said, to monitor the air and trace amounts of the chemical were found.
“There is no reason to suspect anything about it was dangerous, but the information gives the impression that something was wrong,” Hudson said.
Workers sealed the well at 150 feet, 200 feet short of its goal, and started drilling another about 30 feet away, Sperling said. He said he notified the public because the fort wanted residents to know what was happening in case they saw workers wearing respiratory equipment.
“We didn’t want people to be alarmed,” he said.
Barbara Brookmyer of the Frederick County Health Department could not be reached.