What about the arsenic?

After reading Mel Martinez’s column Thursday (“Central Florida has big role in restoration of Everglades”), I have one question for the former U.S. senator who espouses a plan to “inject clean water into our wells and bring it out when needed” as “a safe well established technology.” What about arsenic?

Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) is not well established and by no means safe. In “Mirage,” Cynthia Barnett’s book warning Florida about vanishing sources of safe water, the author writes, “Arsenic is ubiquitous in the part of the aquifer where ASR wells store water …” ASR plans throughout the nation have been jettisoned over concerns about arsenic levels. It makes sense that when that much water is stored underground there is a danger of aquifer contamination.

Martinez states the well water will be treated to meet regulatory standards before it is released back into the environment. But we all know that in Florida it is much more likely that the standards will be tweaked before treatments are applied. And it is hard to keep up with facts about Florida’s increasingly contaminated water supply. In fact, Seminole county had a boil water alert for three days this week that virtually no one knew anything about.

I applaud Martinez’s ability to approach solutions to Florida’s water problems. However invoking ASA technology is the equivalent of poisoning pure water. Conservation, considered development and runoff restrictions are starting grounds for making Florida livable for future generations.

Elizabeth Randall Lake Mary