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Aquifer not affected by area industries  

L. LAMOR WILLIAMS Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Published in Camden News 8/30/2010    

   The Sparta aquifer, the drinking water source for much of eastern and southern Arkansas, has not been adversely affected by industry in the Camden area, a Department of Environmental Quality groundwater study found.
   The state environmental oversight agency has scheduled a public meeting for Tuesday at 6 p.m. in Locust Bayou to discuss the results of the study. The meeting will be held at the Locust Bayou Fire Station on Arkansas 278 in Calhoun County, about 11 miles east of Camden.
   Ryan Benefield, deputy director of the agency, said the reason for the department’s focus on the Locust Bayou area was to study any impact that the former Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot might have had on the aquifer.
   "Over two years ago, we began the study to see whether or not past or current activities at the Highland Industrial Park at Camden has caused any problems with the groundwater," Benefield said. The 17,000-acre industrial park of commercial and Defense Department contractors that made and tested weapons and ammunition covers about a third of the defunct 68,000-acre Shumaker Depot which stretched between Calhoun and Ouachita counties The site was operated by the Navy from 1944 to 1957, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers records. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Quality investigated the site in 2001 when concerns were raised about the levels of perchlorate, an agent in rocket fuel.
   Benefield said a clay layer covers much of the aquifer and that while no problems were detected there could be problems in the future if there was a hazardous materials catastrophe in the area. 


   "The clay covering is not continuous across the entire property," he said. "We did determine that contamination could infiltrate into the Sparta aquifer since the clay covering is not as uniform as it could be, but I want to stress that we have no reason for alarm. We wanted the study to help guide future cleanups."
   When industrial companies close, they must purge the sites of any hazardous waste. If a company fails and cannot pay to clean its site, the Department of Environmental Quality has trust funds for cleanup of the sites that pose the most imminent environmental threat. The Remedial Action Trust Fund, for example, started the year off at about $12.7 million, and at least two sites have been cleaned this year. The money comes from fines collected.
   The Sparta aquifer extends from south Texas, north into Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, and eastward into Mississippi and Alabama, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
   The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took the lead and funded the study, Benefield said. The environmental agencies also worked with the Arkansas Department of Health, which sets and enforces drinking-water regulations. Representatives from each agency will be at the meeting to answer questions about the study.
   "We dug several monitoring wells, and we will be doing occasional monitoring of these wells in the future," Benefield said.
   He said the wells were drilled at a variety of depths and the process allowed the agency to study more than just the groundwater.
   "We also wanted to evaluate the geology of the area," he said. "We took sand samples and clay samples We measured how thick the sand and clay layers are. It was a thorough geological study as well."