News

Developer says effort to remove salt polluted well

By Mike Stucka
Staff Writer
Published: December 5, 2008

BOXFORD — A developer says the state's efforts to remove salt pollution in the Topsfield Road area caused a plume of briny groundwater to run into the well that serves the Andrews Farm subdivision.

Doug Conn, whose public water company serves all but one of the 53 homes in the subdivision, blames rising salt levels in the big well on the state's actions closer to Topsfield Road. The subdivision is about a half-mile from the Topsfield Road salt shed blamed for most of the problems. Conn said the state complicated matters when it sucked salt-laden water from wells to clear up other residents' problems.

"It drew a huge (salt) plume toward us, so it started raising our sodium levels as soon as they started this remediation program," Conn said yesterday. "The use of a scavenger well has actually drawn the salt toward our water supply."

More than 500 tons of salt was removed from a single deep scavenger well in 2004. That year, Conn's water tests showed sodium levels rise significantly after they'd generally been falling for years.

Boxford on Wednesday sued MassHighway and the Department of Environmental Protection, arguing the salt shed should be shut down and the environment cleaned up. Board of Health Chairman Dick Taylor has said some 37 homes have salt contamination in their wells that threatens residents' health.

Conn said he'd like to help the town with the lawsuit, though he said his tiny water company earned about $1,200 profit last year on just $40,000 worth of water sales.

He thinks the long-term answer may be in hooking up with a larger public water supply that pulls its water from far away. He sought Topsfield's water, but the town turned him and the Topsfield Road-area residents away, saying the DEP's rules won't let them help.

Greg Krom, the superintendent of Topsfield's water system, said Topsfield doesn't have the capacity to help Boxford residents with salt problems.

"Because of the regulations by the DEP, we're essentially taking care of town residents and we don't have much to spare for other folks," Krom said. "If we had our withdrawal amounts increased, then we would be willing to talk about the other issues."

The Andrews Farm subdivision has always had salty water, with tests in 1989 showing sodium as high as 85 parts per million, or three times the guideline of 28 parts per million. Since then, however, salt levels have generally been declining, to as low as 58.2 parts per million. After the remediation efforts, tests showed Andrews Farm's water increased by as much as 10 parts per million.

Conn said he doesn't have the money to install a big expensive filtration system.

Neither MassHighway nor the DEP could be reached for comment.