[CPEO-BIF] Where is the Water Well? The Competing Interests of Homeland Security and Environmental Health

[Bob Wenzlau <bob@terradex.com>]

Where is the Water Well? The Competing Interests of Homeland Security and Environmental Health

Can you find the location of a water well in on a governmental mapping system? The answer is maybe – and it varies nationwide. A strong tension between the environmental health protection and safeguards for homeland security controls whether you will find that water well.  Environmental health protection invites for more  transparency in water well locations to aid vulnerability assessments from spill sites, while homeland security management invites hiding the well locations for fear that terrorist would know their locations to affect an assault.  How can we balance the environmental health and security threat, and determine if we have the proper policy course?  Why is there so much variance nationally?

The North Carolina mapping system as an example of where the tensions have competed, and  have limited the potential of a promising public mapping service.  The Public Water Supply Section of the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources maintains an interactive web map that shows water wells juxtaposed with contaminated sites.

This is a blog post I recently wrote, and collects numerous perspectives on this issue that affects long-term care for brownfield properties.  

See: http://blog.terradex.com/2011/08/18/water_well_disclosure/

-- 
Bob Wenzlau
Terradex, Inc.
650-227-3251 | bob@terradex.com | Read the Monitor: A Terradex Blog


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