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EPA wants township to fine-tune road-salt plan
(by Joseph Koziol Jr. - August 11, 2010)
EPA wants township to fine-tune road-salt plan
By JOSEPH KOZIOL JR.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is asking Chardon Township Trustees for more details on a plan that is intended to prevent road salt from getting into ground-water sources.
"The work plan is not approvable at this time," Eric R. Adams, an environmental manager for the EPA, said.
Mr. Adams wrote that trustees, who hired the engineering firm of Burgess and Niple to handle the details, want to hear of specific locations for testing water, spreading out the area for soil samples and disposal plans for soil taken during probes.
Trustees are seeking to use existing wells, rather than drill new ones, for testing water, in an effort to save money.
Woodie Glen resident James Muzic, who brought the issue to light after years of salt damage to his home and yard, said he believes the EPA is asking for more than is necessary. "I thought it was over the top," he said.
Trustee Steven Borawski said the EPA is being especially cautious with the Chardon Township project, because it is likely to set a precedent for similar situations throughout the state. "They want to make sure we do it exactly right," he said.
A decades-long practice of mixing salt and cinders on a gravel lot has allowed salt to leach into the soils and make its way into ground-water supplies, according to the EPA.
Mr. Adams said Burgess and Niple has described a method to screen soil samples for chloride contamination. He said the engineering firm must now develop a procedure for that method.
"The Ohio EPA is concerned that the 20 soil probes are too tightly spaced and that the horizontal extent of soil contamination may not be fully delineated," Mr. Adams said. He asked that officials revise the plans to allow for a larger area of testing.
Mr. Adams also said that one soil sample from each probe, as proposed, would be insufficient. "This will not provide sufficient information to allow for the full assessment of vertical soil contamination," he said. "The use of the soil screening method should help alleviate this concern and will require a revision to the number of samples to be collected at soil probe location."
He said the plan does not contain provisions to backfill soil probe locations. "The work plan must be revised to contain procedures on the abandonment of soil probe locations," he said.
He said 20 proposed ground-water sampling sites, including residential and private supply wells, were not specific in the original plan.
The EPA recommended that at a minimum 19 specific wells be tested. Those sites included seven homes on Woodie Glen Drive, five locations on Mentor Road, two homes on Hampton Ridge and five on Breckenridge.
"At this time, the Ohio EPA will not require the installation of ground-water monitoring wells," Mr. Adams wrote. "However, the well may be needed in the future to help determine how effective contaminated soil removal and the implementation of best management practices have been in decreasing the chloride concentrations in ground water."
Mr. Adams also called plans for sampling and monitoring well samples "generic," and asked the township for plans that are more site specific.
He also instructed the township to take samples in streams within the first 30 minutes of a rainfall of 0.1 inch or greater.
Standard operating procedures also must be developed for sampling residential wells to better assess the underlying ground-water quality.
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