High level of toxic metal found in inactive well on Moog Road (Pasco County Florida)

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High level of toxic metal found in inactive well on Moog Road

The state is upset the county waited to report the high levels of thallium,

even though the well is not in use.

By ALISA ULFERTS

© St. sburg Times, published July 10, 1999

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Pasco County could be slapped with several citations for not reporting high

levels of a poisonous metal discovered in a county drinking water well,

state environmental officials said Friday.

County tests conducted in February and March detected thallium -- a toxic

heavy metal that can cause kidney, liver and brain damage -- at levels

between five and seven times the maximum allowed under law.

Federal law requires the county to contact the state within 48 hours of

finding elevated contaminants in the water supply. But the county waited

until June 11 -- three months after a second test confirmed the original

results -- before it submitted its quarterly tests results to the state.

Even then, the county did not flag the high levels for the state, which

became aware of them only after the Times questioned the tests.

" They failed to notify us, " said Sequeira, who monitors Pasco

County's drinking water for the state Department of Environmental

Protection. Sequeira said Pasco automatically receives a violation simply

for having the elevated levels of thallium and could get a second violation

for failing to report the tests, depending on whether the state decides the

failure was deliberate or an oversight.

" Our rules are pretty clear, " Sequeira said.

" They oopsed. "

Assistant County Administrator for Utilities Doug Bramlett said his office

didn't notify the state because the well, located on Moog Road just east of

U.S. 19 in Colonial Hills, is a backup well that hasn't been used since May

1998.

" If it was an active well, then yes, we would have notified them, " Bramlett

said.

" I disagree that it's a violation. "

Even though the county doesn't actively use the well -- the county stopped

last year because of problems with bacteria counts -- it still must test it,

county officials said. The well is functional and was last pumped in April

of this year to prepare it for testing, county records show.

Neither county nor state officials will hazard a guess as to the thallium's

origins in the well, and Sequeira said she's never seen elevated levels of

thallium in any of the counties she's monitored for the state. According to

the federal Environmental Protection Agency, thallium in groundwater

typically comes from leaching near ore smelting and petroleum refining, and

is most common in Texas, Ohio and Minnesota.

State and federal environmental officials found the metal while searching

the abandoned Stauffer Chemical Co.'s operations just south of the Pasco

County line. For 34 years, from 1947 to 1981, phosphate ore was processed at

the site on the north bank of the Anclote River.

When the plant closed, it left behind a toxic legacy: 130 acres of soil

laden with arsenic, thallium, elemental phosphorous, mercury and other

chemicals, as well as radioactive elements. When the toxic waste site was

added to the country's list of Superfund sites in 1994, environmental

officials warned that all groundwater wells within a four-mile radius could

be affected. The Moog Road well appears to fall within that radius.

At the time, environmental officials said that underground water flowed

generally southwest from the site, which would pull any contaminants away

from the heavily populated Holiday area and into the Gulf of Mexico. But

environmental officials cautioned that the exact direction of the Floridan

Aquifer in that area was unknown.

So far, nothing has been done to clean up the site. 's Bluff resident

Bruce Dickey, whose neighborhood was served by the Moog Road well before it

was shut off, questioned whether the thallium in the well came from

Stauffer, how long it had been there and why the county kept silent.

" It blows my mind -- they knew about it and they kept it secret, " Dickey

said. Dickey, who has battled with environmental officials over radioactive

road-bed material that was produced at the Stauffer site and used on roads

in his neighborhood, in Holiday and in Tarpon Springs, said residents have

suffered enough.

" This is yet another assault on us. We are already dealing with the

contaminants in the road. And now it's in the water. "

County records for 1996, the last year the Moog Road well was routinely

tested for chemicals, do not show elevated levels of thallium in the well.

Were the well not already inactive, county officials could have been ordered

to shut it down until the thallium was removed or further tests came up

clear. That's what the EPA did in April in Columbus, Ohio, after tests

detected thallium in two of Ohio American Water's wells. The level of

thallium detected in those wells was two parts per billion, the legal limit.

And in 1995, EPA officials supplied several families living near a land

Superfund site with bottled water after their private wells showed thallium

levels ranging from six to 12 parts per billion.

The thallium detected in Pasco's Moog Road well was 14 parts per billion in

the first test and 10 parts per billion in the second test.

As for Pasco, this is not the first time the county has had problems

reporting test results for its western wells. According to the EPA, the

county has been cited 10 times in the past 10 years for failing to conduct

or report the results of required tests on its western wells. The county

also has been cited nine times in the past 10 years for having too much

fecal bacteria in its active western wells.

The county now must notify the public about the thallium levels in the Moog

Road well and come up with a plan to rid the water of the chemical, Sequeira

said.

-- Researcher Kitty contributed to this report, which also contains

information from Times files.

-- Times staff writer Alisa Ulferts covers Pasco County government. She can

be reached in west Pasco at 869-6244 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6244. Her

e-mail address is ulferts@....