On April 21 at 7:30 p.m. the Chestertown Council will hear a plan from Shore Regional Health consultants to inject the chemical, Ivey-Sol, into the groundwater at Chester River Hospital — to clean up the remains of a 25-year old heating oil spill that was estimated at over 100,000 gallons. Town Manager Bill Ingersoll has said the spill was closer to 150,000 gallons.
The components in Ivey-Sol remain unknown because of a patent — and the plan is experimental because it has never been done this close to a town’s drinking water supply, said Chestertown Utilities Manager Bob Sipes. The Maryland Department of the Environment has called the plan a “Pilot Study.”
Sipes raised concerns last fall that prompted the town council to retain an outside attorney and seek an injunction, which then prompted the Maryland Department of the Environment to have Shore Regional Health delay the injections.
“If you don’t know everything that is in the chemical, you can’t test for it, and we won’t know if it ends up in the drinking water,” Sipes said.
Sipes said the system of pumps and recovery wells in place since the early 90s has successfully kept the oil from migrating off site — 1,500 feet down hill towards the town’s drinking wells.
The injections are designed to liquefy oil trapped in the sand formations so it can be more easily pumped out — but Sipes is concerned that once liquified, the oil and the Ivey-sol could escape quickly beyond the ability of the pumps to keep any contaminants from moving downgrade towards the drinking wells.
He also said a recent meeting with MDE and Shore Health officials on Tuesday, Apr. 15, gave him nothing to allay his concerns from last year and said a promise of cooperation and progress meetings with the hospital was broken. He also said the makers of Ivey-sol reneged on a commitment to disclose the compounds in the chemical — so he could test to see if it ever showed up in the water.
“We pledge to work cooperatively, with open communication with the Town, MDE, and other experts through resolution,” said Kenneth Kozel, CEO of UM Shore Regional Health last October.
In an email to the Spy on Monday, MDE Deputy Director of Communications Jay Apperson contradicted Sipes and said there was never an expectation of meetings or communications with the town on the proposed project.
“The project was not going to go forward until MDE responded to those questions and any other remaining concerns,” Apperson said. “For that reason, MDE did not have an expectation that the hospital would communicate with the town on the proposed project during that time. That said, MDE became aware that the hospital had not provided monthly and quarterly monitoring well sample results to the Town, and in March we again directed the Hospital to do so and otherwise copy the Town on all reports, letters and plans.”
The injections are Shore Regional Health’s attempt to retire a $50,000 annual expense of maintaining the current remediation system.
Mayor Chris Cerino said he wanted to withhold comment until the experts have presented the plan on Apr. 21.
Gibson Anthony says
Editor,
Is it me, or does this have potential disaster written all over it? If Bob Sipes has concerns then we should all be worried. Bob is the guardian of our water supply. Officials at MDE who are calling it a “Pilot Study” should try injecting Ivey-sol next to their own water supplies and get back to us in ten years. Is there an upside to us playing guinea pig with a mystery chemical next to our water supply?
bill arrowood says
Editor,
Forget about the Marina and any Economic Development hopes, this well could be the defining moment of the Cerino Administration. This should be front page news every week until this whole deal settled and done, and anyone who isn’t gravely concerned is drinking bottled water already.
I genuinely want to trust that after 25 years, we have people in place who will attack this problem until it is solved once and for all.
Kevin Shertz says
Editor,
Let’s put this more simply:Shore Regional Health is willing to possibly endanger the entire water supply of Chestertown to save itself $50,000 a year.
Janice Dickson says
Editor,
Once there was a sweet town on a lovely river with lots of truly nice people living in it. Then it was revealed that years before the local hospital had spilled oil, or oil had leaked, difference is immaterial, and the local hospital knew of the spill/leak. But they tried to keep it quiet and over time tried to clean it up, and their efforts failed. Enter takeover by big university for-profit hospital which now wants to insert some unknown chemical (it’s proprietary, just like the fracking chemicals injected into the earth) so the citizens of this sweet town on a lovely river were told “we can’t tell you what or how or why we want to use this chemical,” but “trust us.” Yea, sure just like the people who lived in this sweet town on a lovely river trusted the university who took the hospital out of local control said “trust us, we are here for you.” A tissue of lies and obfuscations.
For the good of everyone the Mayor and the County Commissioners and the State MUST quickly become involved in this potentially hazardous situation, work together atop speed and come to a solution. Hang the cost; Shore Health wants to quit paying $50,000 in remediationa annually. . . . . . can they be serious?
Ruining any town’s water supply is beyond imagination, but this seems to be building up to a potential disaster. This should be front page news every week!
Fred Keer says
The purpose of these comments is to clarify issues about the site and help promote a meaningful discussion of future remediation steps proposed for the site.
Factual information concerning this site has always been available in the public record since discovery of the accidental release. The specific details of the release could not be determined due to inaccessibility of portions of the system.
A. In excess of 80,000 gallons of number 2 fuel oil (free product) have been extracted from the site.
B. As a general rule no more than 50% of subsurface petroleum can be extracted utilizing primary recovery methods (ground water/water
table skimming). Therefore, a reasonable working estimate of the original release would be 160,000 gallons of fuel oil released to the subsurface. The actual amount could be higher or lower.
C. The town well-field/water supply contains multiple shallow wells.
D. The town well closest to the release site is known to influence the contamination plume. As a pro-active measure, this well was shut down years ago
to help prevent migration of the contamination plume down dip towards the multiple town well-field/water supply.
E. The dissolved phase contamination plume historically migrated down dip/gradient, approximately to the edge of Campus Avenue.
F. The free phase plume historically migrated down dip/gradient to just below Brown Street.
G. The Hospital site lies within the Ground Water Protection Area determined for the town well-field.
H. The town well-field is installed in a paleo stream channel (old stream channel) which trends parallel to Philosophers Terrace
up gradient towards the hospital site. This stream channel is a permeable, preferential pathway.
I. The Hospital/contamination site sits on or near the locality of the headwaters of the paleo stream channel.
No future remediation proposals should be considered for approval without first developing and explaining the site conceptual model postulated for the site. Development of a site conceptual model is standard procedure for all remediation sites. This model must contain the following facts and postulates:
1. A map view of the site annotating all possible source areas and all possible receptor areas. For this site the general source area is the underground storage tank locality and associated contamination plume. The primary, receptor of concern is the town well-field/water supply.
2. Several strike and dip cross sections depicting the detailed stratigraphy (constructed from detailed core data) of the source area including both free phase and dissolved phase contamination plume.
3. Several strike and dip cross sections depicting the town water supply/well-field including well depths and screened/open hole intervals.
4. Cross sections traversing the Hospital site and town well-field/water supply depicting postulated preferential pathways between the two.
The site conceptual model must be the framework for discussing all future remediation proposals and should be refined as new information becomes available.
*Sufficient detailed core data may not be available to refine the existing site conceptual model and evaluate the site for fluid/chemical injection, remediation procedures.
*An accurate estimate of the remaining contamination should be made utilizing core data as well as dissolved groundwater chemical data.
*Prior to permitting/approving any form of subsurface injection of fluids/chemicals, detailed cross-sections of injection well stratigraphy and recovery well stratigraphy must be constructed.
*Injection wells should be designed and constructed for the purpose of injection of fluids into specific formations.
*Chemical makeup of injection fluids must be known and divulged. “Proprietary information” should not be accepted as an excuse to withhold information.
*A robust recovery system and monitoring plan (chemical data and physical data) must be developed to recover and document all injection and recovery of fluids.
*No fluids should be injected without knowing the pathways between injection and recovery wells and monitor wells. These pathways must be determined utilizing detailed core data.
*In order to be legitimate, the monitor well circuit must be separate from the injection/recovery well circuit.
*Contamination (free phase product and dissolved constituent) exists under the Hospital building and for all practical purposes remains inaccessible but mobile. This contamination will continue to be a source area.
The purpose of injection of surfactants into formations is to mobilize immiscible fluids (in this case free phase, number 2 heating oil as a contaminant) trapped/partially trapped within the formation. These mobilized fluids/contaminants will move with the artificially established hydraulic gradient and/or natural hydraulic gradient over time. The natural hydraulic gradient is towards the town well-field/water supply. Once artificial hydraulic control ceases, the natural gradient will control the migration of contaminants.
Given the fact that the contamination plume has been documented to endanger the town’s well-field/water supply, this site seems to be a questionable choice to utilize and/or experiment with known or unknown, surfactant fluid injection, remediation procedures.
Remediation of groundwater petroleum contaminated sites is a difficult, demanding, complicated and expensive undertaking. In my opinion, and as is documented in the public record, the efforts put forth by the responsible party to date have been effective although information put forth to the public could have been better. This is not an easy site to remediate concerning the costs and potential impacts. It is not an easy site to close out.