[CPEO-MEF] Toxic water source a mystery

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New Jersey
THE WOONSOCKET CALL
Toxic water source a mystery
MICHAEL HOLTZMAN, Staff Writer
May 15, 2003

NORTH SMITHFIELD -- After three rounds of residential well testing since
2000 around the Nike missile site off Old Oxford Road, the number of
homes with contaminated water above state drinking standards has
declined slightly.

The Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) formed by the U.S. Air National
Guard (ANG) station at that base continues to search for origins of the
contamination as it prepares for deep-well drilling in its third phase
this summer, officials told a sparse audience Thursday night.

RAB-contracted consultants said what had been five or six homes in 2000
whose traces of tricholooethylene (TCE) exceeded the five parts per
billion (ppb) limit for unsuitable drinking recommended by the state has
dropped to two households.

TCE is a degreasing agent known to have been used in military equipment
when the Army used the site and later, in 1972, when the state ANG’s
102nd Air Control Squadron took it over. The 33-acre rural station is
now used for training.

On Wednesday, after being asked previously for expense details, Badrul
"Bud" Hoda, project manager for the ANG environmental restoration branch
at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, listed the total spent to date by
the U.S. Department of Defense at $2.7 million.

The bulk of that expense, Hoda said, has been for investigation
purposes, including well drilling, monitoring equipment and labor, data
collection and periodic reporting to the advisory board.

A well-known international engineering company, CH2MHALL from Boston,
based in Colorado, with at least 165 offices in the United States and
abroad, was contracted for the investigative work. The company has been
paid about $2.5 million, Hoda said.

Another $124,000 has gone for residential well sampling, a process the
ANG is continuing, while not projecting at this time the results they
anticipate.

"I feel like we’re coming close to a decision. We set out to find where
the contamination is coming from," said Hoda, who came up from Maryland
to attend the RAB meeting.

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