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ENVIRONMENTAL SURVEY UPDATE ARTICLES
AGENCIES JOIN FORCES TO
TRACK DOWN MERCURY CONTAMINATION
County, state and federal officials plan next
year to coordinate their efforts to find the sources of mercury contamination in
the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer. The U.S. Geological Survey, the New Jersey
Department of Environmental Protection, and the Gloucester County Health
Department have been testing well water from the aquifer for mercury under
separate water-quality studies.
Officials from state and federal environmental
and health agencies do not know the source of the aquifer's contamination, but
Julia Barringer, a water-quality specialist with the USGS, said researchers are
getting close. Their latest theory is that the mercury is coming from former
cropland.
In the last year, federal scientists have been
drilling and testing wells on agricultural and undeveloped land in eight South
Jersey counties along paths where they believe the water in the aquifer is
flowing, Barringer said. By tracking the flow of the water and chemicals through
the aquifer, researchers hope to find and identify the contamination sources.
When testing for mercury, scientists are
finding unnatural levels of other contaminants, such as chloride and nitrates,
which suggests that the mercury entered the aquifer through compound chemicals
such as pesticides and fertilizers.
Scientists have also discovered that 75
percent of the mercury-contaminated sites they found are near former
agricultural land. The most recent hypothesis, Barringer said, is that the
mercury needs some kind of mobilizing agent, such as the chlorides and nitrates,
to move from the soil to the water supply.
The federal agency is also studying the
aquifer for other contaminants such as cancer-causing levels of radium.
Researchers have said the aquifer is most susceptible dangerous pollutants
because the water system is not far underground.
The aquifer serves more than 1.2 million
people through private and public systems.
(The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 4,
1998)
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