Government Seeks Data on Chemical Plume in Odenton

The federal government will install wells to test for groundwater contamination in Odenton later this year as part of an effort to determine the scope of chemical pollution stemming from Fort Meade.

Officials from the nearby Army base plan to install three wells later this year, and perhaps an additional four more in 2012, in order to learn how far chemical plumes have traveled. Groundwater contamination from the chemicals trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene are believed to stem from a series of former industrial sites on base. Officials said they know the width and depth of the chemical plume, but not the length.

“We don’t know the end point of this plume,” said Paul Fluck, the restoration manager at Fort Meade. “It’s still under investigation. The better we understand the architecture, the better we understand where it’s going and the ecological and human impact.”

The Army will install three testing wells in the area near Nevada Avenue and the  MARC station sometime this fall. It could install as many as four more wells next year, depending on the findings from the first three.

Fluck said the contamination from the plume stretches out a least a mile from its source and is flowing in a southeast direction at between 200 and 250 feet each year.

The contamination does not impact the quality of drinking water of those residents hooked up to public service. Those who use wells are already receiving bottled water.

Fluck spoke before a meeting of the Greater Odenton Improvement Association (GOIA) on Wednesday night. The group was seeking an update on the full scope of environmental concerns in the area.

In addition to the plume from the Fort Meade industrial sites, the Army is monitoring several other plumes, including a mile-long plume at the southern end of the base, stemming from chemical drums found at the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office, and another plume found near a control site for the former Nike missile program. 

Fluck said there is no specific time line for when the Army would seek to remove the chemical pollution from the ground because it is still investigating. 

Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, said the government could use a number of difference remediation options, including so-called “pump and treat” processes, chemical oxidation and bio-remediation. He said the Army should be given credit for working with the community on addressing the chemical plume problems.

“They are going to have to have a systematic, coordinated approach to the cleanup, and that appears to be what the Army is doing here,” Siegel said.

Members of GOIA on Wednesday night also heard discussion over the issue of fly ash near a proposed new development in Gambrills. Fred Tutman, the Patuxent Riverkeeper, said he remained concerned that developers of the Village South at Waugh Chapel project are not doing enough to address the potential spread of fly ash beyond the development footprint.

The Village South project will include about 1 million square feet of commercial space on a former coal landfill. Developer Greenberg Gibbons said the construction would essentially serve as a cap to ensure fly ash contamination doesn’t spread, but environmentalists said that doesn’t address the issue of cleaning up the pollution that’s there.

“Our concern is that it’s not really a remedy, and that they are turning a liability into an asset,” Tutman said. “From an environmental standpoint, you still have a problem.”

Discussion of the chemical plumes at Fort Meade and Odenton are expected to continue Thursday night at a meeting of the Fort Meade Restoration Advisory Board. The chemical issue and the fly ash issue will also be on the agenda at the Community Leader’s Roundtable meeting at Bob Evans Restaurant on Friday morning.