Deep Well Infection

For Miami-Dade it all began in June 1994, with the discovery of ammonia and total kjedahl nitrogen in elevated levels at well number five. Both chemicals are considered indicators for the presence of effluent. The monitoring well covered a deep injection hole at the northwest corner of the facility, which hadn't even begun operation, lending credence to geologist Donald McNeill's contention that the sewage is migrating west. Subsequently the county found significant amounts of ammonia at seven other wells. McNeill believes the county's threshold for ammonia is too high and that in fact contamination is present in more of the wells. An environmental group based in Tallahassee, the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation (LEAF), sued to halt permits that would allow operation for wells fourteen through seventeen, based on the findings of contamination.

The EPA has ordered the county to perform studies on the situation. Of course while that's being done, the county continues to inject sewage. The EPA has demanded the county figure out where the wastewater is going and why. Suddenly, eighteen years after it first began injecting sewage into the earth, the county must formulate a plan on how to determine the geology of the treatment-facility site. Why this wasn't done adequately prior to drilling the wells nobody can seem to explain. The EPA also has demanded a feasibility report about how to do tracer tests on the sewage to try to follow its path.

The county turned in the reports recently, and the EPA is reviewing them. Agency officials say their responses should be completed by January. It's likely more reports will then be requested. Donald McNeill's findings about how the wells were dug and the county's mistaken geological assumptions arrived at the EPA office in Atlanta two weeks ago. Chief of safe drinking water Carol Tarras refuses to comment on the report until it's studied further.

It almost seems as though the agency is stalling. And in fact, if the EPA gets its way, all the fuss might soon be moot, through a simple stroke of the pen.

Fact: The only back-up aquifer that could provide water in the future is contaminated. For more than twenty years, the feds have green-lighted injecting sewage into the ground as long as it didn't move, which, notes local EPA wastewater disposal director Richard Harvey, happens to be a physical impossibility. “If you inject a gallon of water down a hole,” he reasons, “you have to displace a gallon of water in the formation into which it is discharged.”

Now the sewage has moved directly into the aquifer, and though it's not the primary one, that's small solace after a few years of drought. But the wastewater hasn't stopped moving. It wants to rise. County geologist Bertha Goldenberg of the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department cannot explain where it's going or what happened to it. Will it seep into the sea and poison offshore marine life? Could it make it to the main drinking-water supply?

Facing alarming questions without satisfactory answers, the EPA had to respond. Unsurprisingly the agency decided not to shut down deep well injection in Florida; it is fearful of the lawsuits and howls of pain from taxpayers forced to sop up billions in costs for the agency's errors. Following the well-worn precept, “It's not what's legal, it's what can be legalized,' the EPA opted to alter the rules and allow for some contamination of underground sources of drinking water. Shit happens.

Currently the agency is taking public comment on two different alternatives for its rule change. Option number one requires that all sewage sent into the earth be given what the EPA calls “advanced treatment.” This high-level cleansing process would make the wastewater going into the aquifer clean enough to qualify for national drinking-water standards.

This option has both environmentalists and utilities enraged. Advanced treatment does not come cheap, and no one -- from utilities on down the line -- wants to pay. “What we're saying is this technology [deep well] is, has been, and continues to be more than viable,” insists Lisa Maxwell, a spokesperson for the Builders Association of South Florida, whose 700 members cover South Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties. “It happens to be sound, so to limit its use or to decree additional requirements that cause hardship on local utilities and utility departments really is not the way to go about this.”

Laughing, she promises hefty sewer bills will be needed if the EPA forces a multibillion-dollar retooling effort.

Environmentalists are no less incensed that the EPA is backtracking on the no-migration rule, after its safety assurances smoothed the way for this whole crisis in the first place. They believe current drinking-water laws aren't tough enough, and advanced treatment won't do the job. Of the 15,000 chemicals in highest use, less than 22 percent of them have undergone minimal tests for toxicity, points out Suzi Ruhl, president of the environmental group LEAF.