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MINUTES June 15, 2000 2 BOARD OF HEALTH APPOINTMENT: MMR-IRP re: Plume/Clean-up Update Major Bruce Ruscio, Health Advisor for the Joint Program Office, Ben Gregson of the Groundwater Study Area, Doug Karson and Mike Minor of IRP were in attendance for this scheduled appointment. i Major Ruscio updated the Board on the impact area and the installation and restoration of the plumes being worked on currently. He provided Board members t with informational packets including risk assessment information, quarterly news items, toxicological profile from ATSDR, and Massachusetts's DPH 2000 evaluation of the recreational use of bodies of water in or around the MMR. Major Ruscio stated, "Some of the chemical of concern in the impact area include RDX, TNT and HMX. All three of these chemicals are man-made and they enter the media, either air, soil or water from detonation of explosives, which occurred previously in the impact area. I think it is important to note that there is no training with explosives taking place in the impact area now." "TCE, PCE, EDB are solvents used extensively and constitute some of the chemicals of concern in the plume. EPA has identified TCE as a probable human carcinogen, which means that it has been identified as a carcinogen at least in experimental animals. The EPA has also identified EDB as a probable human carcinogen." "There is an environmental public health center on MMR which is filled by ATSDR representatives and three state of MA environmental health personnel. They are a very good resource for information concerning what is going on on the base. The EPA has a safe-drinking water hotline on the hand-outs and the ATSDR has a 24-hour information hotline." Doug Karson of the IRP presented information to the Board including informational material, individual groundwater plume maps, summary information and the latest statistics for the various plumes. i Mr. Karson stated, "CS-10 plume in the area of Ashumet Pond is a very large solvent plume. TCE and PCE are in the groundwater plume. The highest concentration is in the southernmost area, about 5,000 ppb. Last fall and into the winter we wrapped up our on-pond drilling of Ashumet Pond." "We know the chemical spill is going between the twoonds in a tiny finger shown on the map. That is part of the CS-10 plume P � which goes under the pond and then comes up in shallow groundwater between the two ponds and eventually discharges to John's Pond. But our drilling on the pond basically showed us a lot of groundwater contamination underneath the pond. That has now lead us to a land-based drilling operation that starts next week on Hooppole Road. We got approval from the Mashpee Board of Selectmen a couple of weeks ago to install five monitoring wells along Hooppole Road based on our computer modeling." "We may find additional groundwater contamination in that area. We will certainly share that information as it develops over the next weeks and months." "These new monitoring wells will be used to determine whether or not there is underflowing beyond Ashumet Pond. Do we have contamination down in this area that we are presently not aware of? That's what those five wells are designed to tell us. Based on the results of those five wells,we may be installing more monitoring wells. In fact, the plan that is in effect now also calls, as a contingency depending on how much contamination is found, if any, to put more monitoring wells down on the other side of John's Pond." "Up in the northern part of Ashumet Pond we've been able to identify I