Fort Meade Targets Water Pollution

By Joshua Stewart, staff writer for The Capital
This article originally appeared in The Capital — an Annapolis Newspaper — March 30, 2009.

Fort George G. Meade intends to determine the full extent of groundwater pollution coming from the sprawling west county Army post, Army environmental officials said last week.

Authorities want to find out exactly how far cancer-causing chemicals have traveled from Meade and into Odenton, and if, and how, residents may have been exposed to the hazards.

"It's something that apparently the Army has done ... possibly a long time ago. OK?" said Paul Fluck, the environment-restoration manager at the fort. "What we don't know is where this occurred. We can't put that on a map. We don't know exactly where it occurred. It seems like it's coming from our property."

The plan was explained at a meeting Thursday night of the Fort Meade Restoration Advisory Board, a group of community members and fort officials that monitors how environmental problems at the fort are handled.

The investigation comes after The Sunday Capital first reported [March 22, 2009] that the fort had tested wells on North Patuxent Road, near the Odenton MARC Station, and found dangerously high levels of carbon tetrachloride, tetrachloroethene and trichloroethene.

The chemicals are used as industrial solvents, but they can cause liver problems and cancer after several years of continuous exposure.

Post officials said they want residents who use well water and live within a mile of the train station to complete a survey and allow a technician to collect water samples from their property.

The samples will be sent to a lab to be tested for hazardous chemicals. Depending on the results, the Army will provide households with bottled water, officials said.

A public meeting will be scheduled for the week of April 6 to further discuss the situation. Water samples are scheduled to be collected sometime next month.

Also, Meade officials will perform an air analysis to figure out if the contaminants are seeping up from the soil.
Michael Butler, chief of the fort's environment division, said the source of the contamination was unclear.

The wells that showed high levels of contamination are near a now-capped and closed landfill, but the pollution is deep, hinting at another source. It still appears that something on Fort Meade is causing the contamination, but it can't be pinpointed, he said.

Either way, the Army is taking responsibility and will handle the problem, he said.

The fort's water test near the train station revealed chemicals in the Lower Patapsco Aquifer, an underground river that is several hundred feet deep.

However, most residential wells take water from the more shallow Upper Patapsco Aquifer, not the deeper Lower Patapsco Aquifer. It is unlikely that the contamination from the lower aquifer seeped to the upper aquifer because they are separated by a thick clay buffer, Butler said.

Will Pollutants Discovered at Fort Meade Affect DISA's BRAC Move?

No. DISA is confident that the Army is taking all necessary steps to ensure the safety of the base population and local residents. DISA will continue with the planned move to Fort Meade — scheduled to be completed by Sept. 2011.

Additional Information:

Fort Meade Environmental Management System (EMS) Web Site

Interim Measures Being Conducted to Address Groundwater Contamination (Briefing Slides Presented at the March 26, 2009 Restoration Advisory Board Meeting)