Council president wants more testing

LANCASTER - Lancaster City Council President Robert Hedges wants the city to do further testing of the city's water wells near where Fairfield County is building a new $34.5 million jail on Wheeling Street.

He said the city has never tested the 13 production wells that supply drinking water to residents and that two monitoring wells have shown increased levels of arsenic since April. He said the amount of arsenic shown has doubled in one well and almost doubled in the other. Hedges said the arsenic level in the monitoring wells have sometimes exceeded the United States Environmental Protection Agency's standards of 10 micrograms per liter.

"They test the monitoring wells on a monthly basis," Hedges said. "I think they should be tested more frequently, like bi-monthly."

Hedge is a retired hydrogeologist who has long said building the jail on Wheeling Street could contaminate the city's water with arsenic and other legacy pollutants from previous businesses that have been on the site.

City water superintendent Mike Nixon said there is no data to suggest the jail construction has harmed the city's water supply at this point. He also said the city will begin testing the production wells on a monthly basis through the end of the year beginning this month for arsenic.

Nixon said readings can swing significantly from test to test when testing monitoring wells. He also said water in the wells is untreated ground water and that treated water does not exceed the USEPA standard Hedges referred to. Hedges said the normal filtration process does not remove the arsenic, however, a point Nixon disagreed with.

"He is wrong about that," Nixon said.

County commissioner Steve Davis said the county will go along with whatever the city does as far as further testing. But like Nixon, he said arsenic levels in the past have been higher than the 10 threshold at both city well fields in the past, before construction began.

"It's unfortunate that he's (Hedges) trying to induce panic with the public over these readings," Davis said.

If everything goes as planned, the new jail will start accepting prisoners in June 2017 with the project being completed in August 2017.

Visit the city website at www.ci.lancaster.oh.us for more information about the city water wells. The information can be found by clicking the Lancaster news section of the home page.

jbarron@lancastereaglegazette.com

740-681-4340

Twitter: @JeffDBarron