Contract awarded in search for new Pownal water source

POWNAL — The search will soon be on for a new well to serve the Pownal Fire District No. 2 water system and its approximately 450 customers.

After a bidding process, Otter Creek Engineering, of Rutland, was selected to perform the search.

A new water source became a priority after perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, was found in the existing well last spring around the time similar contamination near industrial plants was discovered in North Bennington and in nearby New York communities. The Fire District No. 2 well is in a field near the former Warren Wire Co./General Cable Co. factory on Route 346.

Since then, a granular activated filtering system has been installed near the wellhead to remove PFOA from the water supply.

The former wire factory — about 1,000 feet from the well site — has changed hands more than once since opening in 1948 and now is used primarily as a warehouse by Mack Molding. The site is the suspected source of the industrial chemical in Pownal, where it has also turned up in a number of private wells.

According to state officials, American Premier Underwriters of Cincinnati took on the building’s environmental liabilities after the site was sold to Mack Molding. APU agreed last year to pay for the filtering system at the wellhead and to cover other intermediate costs, like bottled water for residents and filters on private wells in the area with levels of PFOA higher than the state-accepted level of 20 parts per trillion.

Unicorn Management Consultants, of Danbury, Connecticut, was hired by the underwriting firm to oversee the responses to the PFOA contamination. Francisco Trejo, president of Unicorn Management, last week referred questions about the project to the Department of Environmental Conservation. However, DEC spokeswoman Danika Frisbie said the state is not directly involved except as the regulator.

Mark Youngstrom, of Otter Creek, said his firm agreed that all comment should go through Unicorn Management or state officials.

He did say during a Pownal Fire District meeting in November that, while working for another engineering firm, he designed the current water system when it replaced an aging privately owned water system during the 1990s. Youngstrom said that work included locating, testing and obtaining permits for the existing 100 gallons-per-minute well off Route 346.

State officials have said identifying, testing and approving a new well for a public water system usually takes a year to 18 months.

District board members seemed in agreement at the November meeting that they would favor having Youngstrom and Otter Creek oversee the search for an uncontaminated water source. Youngstrom said at the time that his firm had some areas in mind where it would look first for a suitable site, but he noted that a number of criteria must be met for a new well, including access to the site and landowner cooperation.

The state issued a no-drink order for the water district in March, after levels of PFOA above the state’s limit were detected. Water was found to have levels of 26 and 27 parts per trillion.

By late July the carbon filter system, which includes large steel tanks, was installed near the wellhead, and the no-drink order was lifted. The filtering system is expected to remain in place until a new water source can be brought online.

The chemical PFOA, which was used in wire coatings and in consumer products and packaging, is suspected to have a link to cancers and other diseases.

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