Chestertown received a response from Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) about the proposed plans for the oil remediation project near the hospital—and they’re not not happy with it.
“While MDE answered some of our concerns about the proposed technique, other questions were not addressed at all, specifically our request to use a site characterization model which is designed to gauge the extent of the contamination vertically and horizontally,” said Town Utilities Manager Bob Sipes at Monday’s town council meeting..“They are assuming everything in the best light for them and it’s not being challenged,” he added.
Sipes explained that the current plan offers no baseline to evaluate the success of the process bu offering a current snapshot of where the oil remains, and that it was designed only to clean minimal areas around the monitoring wells which could falsely indicate a clean soil environment.
Major Chris Cerino said that while he understands the issue presented, it will be up to the town to appeal to MDE for a reconsideration of its position on the oil remediation plans offered by University of Maryland Shore Regional Health’s consultants. He added that “ Shore Health will follow MDE’s guidelines no matter what they might be and the town was best served by dealing directly with the environmental agency.
The council will request the town attorney to contact the MDE with these objections and to ask for a meeting to resolve the town’s concern. MDE has previously stated that they will hold a public meeting before offering final approval of any remediation process.
The oil spill occurred in 1986 near the hospital and leaked 100,000 gallons of heating oil into the ground. Estimates on how much oil remains underground vary between 20,000 and 63,000 gallons. No contaminants have reached the town water supply.
The video is of Town Utilities Manager Bob Sipes and Mayer Chris Cerino discussing the issue.
David Foster says
In an otherwise good summary, there are several very misleading statements in the next to the final paragraph of this article:
1) The article claims that 100,000 gallons of heating oil originally leaked into the ground. Although many people have used this “nice round number” of 100,000 gallons, no one knows for sure how much leaked out. Obviously, if the oil leak was being measured this accurately it raises the question as to why it was not corrected long before. Despite repeated requests, Shore Health has never provided the numbers needed to make this calculation.
2) The article claims that 20,000 to 63,000 gallons remain underground. MDE admits that it has never verified any of these estimates. In fact, EPA guidelines suggest that the technique employed by Shore Health to remove the oil will typically remove only about 50%. Given that Shore Health claims to have removed 87,000 gallons, this would mean that at least 87,000 gallons of heating oil still remain underground and just up hill from our town drinking water supply wells.
3) The article claims that “No contaminants have reached the town water supply.” Once again, this is very misleading. While it is true that none of the contaminated water has been distributed through the drinking water system to individual homes, the heating oil that leaked from the hospital did contaminate at least one of the town’s wells and that water well had to be closed in order to prevent it from contaminating the whole system.
Stephan Sonn says
The citizens of this town owe Mr Sipes a debt of gratitude for not letting this issue get swept under the rug.