This week, the first cycle of the oil remediation process took place at the Chestertown Hospital Center site. A soap-based Ivey-sol surfactant was injected into the recovery wells to loosen the underground petroleum product so that hydraulic pumps could retrieve it.
With concern over the efficacy of the process and where responsibility lies if the remediation process finally does not safeguard the town’s drinking water source, Mayor Cerino and the town council sent a letter to the Secretary of Maryland Department of Environment seeking a Consent Order outlining fiduciary obligations and to prevent any deviation from the proposed action plan.
The letter also questions the viability of enough funding from the Maryland Oil Disaster Contingency Fund to underwrite a worst case scenario—oil product reaching the town’s water supply and the requisite re-drilling of wells in another location.
In the letter, Mayor Cerino also requests a meeting with MDE to discuss this proposal.
You may read it here.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.