The detection of a gas additive in two more sites puts Carroll County further in the lead for reported cases of this type of drinking water contamination in the state.
MTBE, a potential carcinogen, was found at four properties along Grave Run and Hoffmanville roads in the northeast, near the Baltimore County line, said Brian Flynn, county water quality supervisor, at a Wednesday meeting with the county’s Environmental Advisory Council.
Letters will be sent today to 80 property owners in that area, notifying them that the wells revealed methyl tertiary butyl ether levels above the state?s action level of 20 parts per billion, said Charles Zeleski, assistant director of the county Health Department?s environmental health bureau, after the meeting.
A doctor had recommended the Maryland Department of the Environment test the water levels after a family he treated became ill, Flynn said.
A public meeting is scheduled for mid-July, and 20 more properties will be sampled.
Farther south in the county, smaller traces of MTBE were discovered at several Middleburg properties after residents complained of their water?s taste, which the Environmental Protection Agency describes as similar to turpentine.
Herbert M. Meade, administrator of the state?s Oil Control Program, said this week that drilling will begin within weeks to install 11 monitoring wells in the yards at six properties along Routes 91 and 32 in Gamber, where MTBE and benzene were first detected years ago.
“This will help us determine a point source,” he said.
EAC Member Sher Horosko said she liked the MTBE response protocol Flynn recently drafted, but said the process doesn?t allow for frequent enough updates to the public on remediation efforts, which, as in the Gamber case, can drag on for years.
So the council passed a resolution asking the commissioners to allow the council to assume an “advocacy role” to help residents stay informed, with the details on how to do that to be determined later.
“If we don?t ask [MDE for updates], citizens are going to be left fending for themselves,” she said.
Flynn said that according to the strategy, Carroll would be required to notify the state within 24 hours after a discovery of methyl tertiary butyl ether.
At a glance
Top three counties for the number of wells with MTBE higher than 5 parts per billion:
1. Carroll County: 109
2. Harford County: 104
3. Cecil County: 75
? Source: Maryland Department
of the Environment
