Board hears calls for aquifer protection
Industries and landowners wanting to tap local aquifers with private wells should not only report how much water they’re pumping, but pay for it, speakers at public hearings said this week.
“At this point, other than paying for the well permits, the water that’s pulled out is free,” Ward Archer, president of the group Protect Our Aquifer, said Monday evening during the first of two hearings on proposed revisions to Shelby County’s approximately 30-year-old well-construction ordinance.
Customers of Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division last month began paying a 1.05 percent water-rate increase to fund a five-year study of the Memphis Sand aquifer, the source of local drinking water. Since utility customers are funding groundwater-protection efforts through their water bills, private well-operators should, too, Archer and other speakers said.
Other measures suggested by speakers include a ban on commercial waterbottling plants and an increase in the minimum distance between wells and contaminated sites.
“There’s really no one looking out for the aquifer ... “Archer said. “There’s no aquifer police.”
About 75 people attended the hearing Monday, while two dozen or so show showed up for a second session Tuesday. The hearings were scheduled to collect public comments on an overhaul of the well ordinance proposed by the county Groundwater Quality Control Board.
The proposed revisions represent “the first time these rules have been looked at since they were first drafted in the mid-eighties,” said Bob Rogers, technical manager of the pollution control section of the Health Department.
The proposed changes follow nearly two years of controversy over a Tennessee Valley Authority plan – now on hold – to pump an average of 3.5 million gallons of water a day from the Memphis Sand to cool a power-generating plant nearing completion in Southwest Memphis.
Although environmentalists and researchers argued the pumping could suck contaminants into the Memphis Sand, the groundwater board granted TVA permits for the five wells at the Allen Combined Cycle Plant. Board members said there was no basis under the existing ordinance to deny the permits.
TVA put its pumping plans on hold – agreeing to buy cooling water from MLGW at least temporarily – after extremely high levels of arsenic were found in a shallow aquifer near a coalash pond just north of the new power plant.
The proposed revisions address many of criticisms of the ordinance that surfaced during debate over the TVA project.
For instance, they provide for different requirements for two classes of wells. “Class A” wells – those that pump at least 250 gallons per minute – must be subject to a 30-day public notice and comment period that includes a board hearing. Opponents had complained there was inadequate notice for the TVA wells.
The revisions also require well-drillers to show “justifiable need” to tap local aquifers, providing documentation that sufficient water from public utilities is not available for their projects.
For wells used to obtain cooling water, the revisions would require that users adhere to strict and costly “best available control technology” to conserve water.
The proposal also would expand the definition of a remediation site containing wastes that could contaminate groundwater. Wells are prohibited within a half-mile of such sites.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Rob Simpson, environmental manager at the Nucor Corp. steel mill near the new TVA plant, said the rule changes are too vague in defining a mandated remediation site and the required “reasonable use” for water pumped from wells.
County officials are accepting comments on the rule changes through April 2.
Reach Tom Charlier at thomas.charlier@commercialappeal.com or 901529-2572 and on Twitter at @thomasrcharlier.