09/16/1993 BOARD OF HEALTH Minutes

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r MINUTES September 16, 1993 4 BOARD OF HEALTH A resident of the Briarwood area informed Board members the total cost, which includes landscaping, for town water hookup would total approximately $3000.00. Mr. Doherty requested Mr. Begley provide residents with a clarification as to why a v.o.c. tests performed today may not indicate contaminants but in a month or two may indicate otherwise. " Mr. Begley informed residents, "We have a map which de- lineates the sites that are contributing to groundwater con- tamination. " "We made some determinations, based on the groundwater flow direction, that the area that could be con- taminated is the area that is north of Hooppole Road and Wheeler Road. " "The water that is South of that is flowing from the area of Ashumet Pond not from an area that we think is contaminated. " "It is that area north of that intersec- tion that we are most concerned about and most of the homes are located in that area. " "The well testing performed in the past has shown that a number of homes had relatively low levels but significant concentrations when you consider the public health aspect in the neighborhood. " "We also saw fluctuations in the levels of contamination in those wells. " "We also know that the monitoring wells that have been in-- stalled show different concentrations at different times. " "The reason for that is there may have been a heavy rain, contaminants were washed out of the soil down into the aqui- fer which is moving along with the groundwater. " "For a pe- riod of time there may be no rain and it may not be to much contamination in the groundwater following behind that but then more would be coming again afterwards. " "Testing the well on one occasion or even several occasions does not nec- essarily tell you that it is safe to drink that water or not. " "The kinds of risks we are talking about are not from only ingesting the water. " "When your showering you may be breathing in vapors that are being emitted from the water in the showers, especially when heated. " "There is also a der- mal exposure when exposed to the water. " "Drinking bottled water is going to help reduce the risk to a certain extent but you still have exposure and you still have risks. " "The kind of concentrations were seeing these are long term unac- ceptable risks. " "These compounds do pose a cancer risk. " A resident of Briarwood questioned Mr. Begley as to whether they are the same contaminants that enter the pond. Mr. Begley responded, "We suspect that some of these plumes of contamination moving through the groundwater do get into the ponds. " "We are trying to evaluate whether all of it goes into the pond or some of it goes under the pond. " "Even if the concentrations that we see in the plumes and monitoring wells were in the pond it would not represent a