Water - It’s something no one can live without and yet most of us take it for granted. Regularly we grab a glass of water from the sink without really thinking about where it comes from. How do we know that it’s safe?

A need for water purification dates back to as early as 2000 B.C. Sanskrit writings on medicine say that water should be heated or purified through filtration through sand and rocks. The Romans even had sedimentation tanks sporadically throughout the aqueducts where water flow would slow and sediment could be deposited.

Today we have chemicals and apparatus to purify water, but the cleaner it is to start with, the easier it is to make sure it’s safe for you to drink. Many municipalities are dealing with the issue of wellhead protection and trying to balance private property rights with the need for clean water for their public water systems.

What is wellhead protection?

As defined by the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1986, a wellhead protection area is “a surface or subsurface area surrounding a water well or well field, supplying a public water system, through which contaminants are reasonably likely to move toward and reach the water well or well field”. In other words, it is the area surrounding a supply of drinking (“potable”) water that is protected with the intent of preventing as many contaminants as possible.

According to the amendments of the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1986, each state is required by law to establish a state program to protect these areas. However, it is important that not only the states have programs in place, but also counties and municipalities.

Setting up a program

Small municipalities in the state can solicit assistance from the Maryland Rural Water Association. The MRWA was formed in 1990 and is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency along with several other government departments. Groundwater specialist for the MRWA Joe Everd has worked in several counties and worked with Thurmont in setting up a plan. “They’re really trying to do things to protect drinking water in Frederick County,” he said.

The MRWA is a great advantage to smaller towns because their services are free. “We go in and assist small systems to help them set up a wellhead protection program,” said Everd. “It means a lot because a lot of systems don’t have the money to hire professionals.”

Part of setting up a wellhead protection program is creating public awareness. Forming a committee comprised of both citizens and public officials is recommended. The MRWA also offers youth awareness programs. They have traveled to several schools with models that simulate groundwater flow and show the dangers of pollutants.

Currently the MRWA is working on placing signs in wellhead protection areas throughout the state that let the public know when they have entered a wellhead area. The signs are being paid for by a grant received from the MDE.

Contamination

According to Everd one of the first steps to setting up a new program is listing all the possible contaminants and their sources. Each municipality also has an emergency plan just in case. The plan details how water will be supplied to the town if the original supply becomes contaminated. Taneytown’s plan anticipates security issues, power outages, equipment failure, water main breaks, and chlorine leaks.

“The threats can be anything,” said Everd, “cleaners, gas stations, underground storage tanks, and businesses.”

In 2006, Emmitsburg ran into trouble when beavers invaded Rainbow Lake. The beavers were considered responsible for “algae blooms” in the lake, which were clogging the filters. The beavers had to be removed to solve the problem.

Emmitsburg Commissioner Joyce Rosensteel has concerns about the possibilities of footpaths and horse trails being laid out around the reservoir. “Our wells are up there,” said Rosensteel. “We need to protect our wells.”

In 1998, Walkersville learned how dangerous and bothersome contamination can be. “There was a development that was being built and on a Friday afternoon they had been using dynamite to get through some rock,” said Town Manager Gloria Rollins. “Evidentially they blew right through a Frederick County sewer line.”

The sewage seeped into the town’s water table causing contamination. By the next day the contamination had spread to the drinking supply.

“Eventually we shut down our water plant. We had big tanker trucks for people to get water,” she said. For the next seven months the town was forced to borrow water from the City of Frederick as the contaminants were filtered out of their water table and as their water plant was upgraded. At the time the city had no wellhead protection area and consequently no plan for the emergency.

Thurmont is currently dealing with two wells, wells seven and eight, that have small traces of a contaminant known as TCE which is a byproduct used in degreasers and other cleaning products. The water from these wells has to be treated because the source of the contaminant is unable to be found.

Memorandum of understanding

In late 2006 the Maryland Municipal League along with the Board of County Commissioners came together with a memorandum of understanding - a step to protecting wellhead areas outside of municipal boundaries.

Presently towns in Frederick County have no way to defend themselves against contaminants whose origin is outside town limits. For example, well seven in Thurmont is very close to a northern border. If someone wanted to develop on the land outside the border, yet still in range of the well, Thurmont would not be able to stop it. Other towns in the county also deal with this.

“We’ve always been concerned with the wellhead area. We have our town limits where we can control what people do, but our wellhead area is much greater than our town limits,” said Rollins, who explained that a great deal of the towns wellhead area is outside of the town’s boundary.

The memorandum does not completely protect these areas. However, it states that the county will notify municipalities if someone submits plans to develop on the land, which gives them time to make comment.

Thurmont Mayor Martin Burns has concerns that while the memorandum is a step in the right direction, there still isn’t enough protection in place. “We just want some sort of comfort zone that says around that wellhead you’re not going to have a fertilizer plant and potentially contaminate the well,” said Burns.