WOODSTOCK WATER ? NOW AND FOREVER???

The Effects of Contamination
Petroleum Spills in Woodstock
What Needs to be Done
Contact

The wells that produce the drinking water for the Woodstock Water System were drilled over 40 years ago in the area known as the Bearsville Flats.  They have produced pure water for many years, while the area around the wells has both aged and become more built up, increasing the potential for ground water contamination from fuel tanks and septic systems. What would happen if the Town of Woodstock public water supply was contaminated by petroleum or some bacteria that forced the Town to stop pumping water from the wells in Bearsville? Could contamination of this sort happen in Woodstock and are there any steps that could be taken by the Town to prevent a water crisis?

The Effects of Contamination

If the Woodstock Aquifer were to become contaminated, it would be worse than a massive power outage.  All of the more than 800 subscribers to the Woodstock Water System would be without water.

The Woodstock Water System includes the homes, offices, retail stores, and restaurants on both sides of State Route 212 from the Bearsville bridge to Plochmann Lane and then along Route 375 to Maverick Road.  The Water System also encompasses homes and establishments up Rock City Road, around Lower Byrdcliffe, and along Glasco Turnpike, west to Upper Byrdcliffe.  The business and tourist center of Woodstock would be without water for drinking, bathing, or flushing.  Fire hydrants would not provide water in the event of a fire within the water district.  Only people who have private wells would still have water.

It would take time to arrange for and connect the Woodstock Water System to a the City of Kingston water main that runs down Route 212 from the Cooper Lake Reservoir.  Woodstock Water System subscribers would have to boil water for drinking or purchase drinking water by the bottle or bulk container.

It would be a strain and a serious blow to the economy of Woodstock.  Loss of our water would present the Town with a situation that would be more costly and more urgent than any crisis in its history.

How long would this inconvenience last?  How long would the subscribers be without the clean water that they have become accustomed to have?  Numerous questions come to mind.

Could the existing aquifer be cleaned and decontaminated?  How long would it take for nature or man to flush out the contaminants, or for the bacteria to die a natural death?

Could the City of Kingston run a supply line from their filtration plant in Sawkill to feed the Woodstock Water System?  Would this take years to accomplish?  How much would it cost initially and over a period of years?  Would Woodstock want to be dependent on Kingston for their public
water supply?

Could the Town of Woodstock build its own filtration plant to filter the public well water, water from the Sawkill or from the Cooper Lake connection?  How long would this take to accomplish and what would it cost?  Does Woodstock have a legal right to water from the Cooper Lake Reservoir forever?

These questions are based on the presumption that nothing is done now to protect the current wells, to protect the recharge area and the watershed, or to look for and protect potential sites for new wells in the Woodstock Aquifer.

Petroleum Spills in Woodstock

Woodstock has a history of contaminating the soil and water supplies with petroleum spills and leaks. More petroleum spills and leaks have been reported in Woodstock on a per capita basis than in most of the cities, towns, and villages in Ulster County. Over 50% of these events have been the result of home fuel oil storage tank failure and faulty equipment.

Petroleum, when it spills or leaks onto the surface and permeates the ground, is cleaned up by digging up the contaminated soil, trucking it away to a site approved by the DEC, and then repairing the surface with fresh uncontaminated soil. This all must be done quickly so that the oil does not
have a chance to cause contamination to ground or surface water. Unfortunately, some spills are so large or uncontrollable that even quick and responsible action cannot stop water contamination.

If ground or surface waters are contaminated by the spill, the remediation process is more difficult, more costly, and potentially very disastrous not only to the site where the spill occurred but to the neighboring community as well.  Public water supplies in other towns have been shut down
by contamination due to petroleum spills and alternative sources have had to be found.  Private water supplies such as homeowner wells that are
contaminated by petroleum spills often require homeowners to acquire new sources of domestic water and/or install expensive domestic filtration systems.

When a spill occurs, the property owner or organization that caused the spill is financially responsible for the remediation process.  If a home fuel oil storage tank fails and contaminates the neighboring wells or the public water supply, the homeowner is responsible for all the costs to rectify the situation.  This includes the cost of supplying water to the neighbors or the community until the contamination is corrected.  If the contamination cannot be corrected, the affected neighbors or the community may take legal action for their loss of property and/or business income.

How likely is it that a fuel storage tank will fail or the equipment will cause a leak?  Failure of a tank depends on the original construction, the age of the tank, whether it was buried or free-standing, whether it was maintained properly or mistreated, and numerous other considerations.
Each property owner is responsible for determining if and when a tank needs to be replaced or relocated.

In the past 17 years, 171 petroleum spills were reported in Woodstock.  21 of these spills (12%), involved 100 gallons or more of #2 fuel oil.  17 of these major spills were the result of fuel storage tank failure. The 21 spills dumped over 5100 gallons of #2 fuel oil into the environment. That is
a lot of fuel oil, enough to fill a tanker truck or an above-ground swimming pool.

Fortunately none of these very large spills occurred near the Town wells. There have, however, been numerous spills within the aquifer area up gradient from the wells.

Six spills occurred on Overlook Drive in the last 10 years.  Two spills occurred at Dixon Avenue residences, one in 1995 and a second in 1996.  The fuel tank at the Bearsville Post Office failed due to rust and leaked 90 gallons of #2 fuel oil. Fortunately none of it reached the Sawkill.
Soil, contaminated with diesel fuel, was uncovered at the Highway Garage in Bearsville when a tank was being removed.  If it had not been
discovered, the diesel fuel might have ended up in the Sawkill and infiltrated the Town wells.


What Needs to be Done

What should the Town do to insure an uninterrupted source of public water?

Protect what exists today, and extend that same protection to sites where new wells may be drilled.

Plan for the future growth of the Woodstock and understand the consequences of not protecting the resources we
currently have.

The Aquifer Protection Plan that is being written by the New York Rural Water Association will go a long way in protecting existing and future wells, and it will include an emergency plan in the event contamination occurs.  It will be up to the Woodstock Town Board working with the Woodstock Environmental Commission, the Woodstock Planning Board, the Ulster County Planning Board, and the Health Department to make the plan into law.  Passing the Aquifer Protection Plan into law should be a very high priority for the Town Board.  It should not be allowed to languish in the "To Do" file.

The Town Board should consider the following:

Establish test sites around the perimeter of the current wells that can be monitored for contamination on a quarterly basis.  This would provide an early warning of actual contamination.

Lobby the Federal Government to officially designate the Woodstock Aquifer as a sole-source public water supply thus gaining the added protection that this designation demands.

Enact a local law that controls the installation and maintenance of buried home fuel oil tanks. Since State law does not provide controls for any fuel tanks under 1100 gallons Suffolk County has enacted laws that do (Suffolk County Sanitary Code Article 12).  They provide for the inspection
and certification of buried home fuel storage tanks similar to those buried near the Woodstock Town wells in Bearsville and elsewhere in Woodstock.

Have an Ulster County or Town appointed Health Officer inspect sites that may potentially contaminate the aquifer.  The provisions for such inspection are covered in Title 10 Section 5 of the New York State Department of Health Codes, Rules and Regulations.

Take steps to procure parcels of land or land rights for drilling new wells. In the event the current wells fail, or are contaminated, the least costly alternative is to drill new public wells.  To do this, the Town must own or have the easement rights to land within the aquifer.  The New
York Rural Water Association is identifying such properties in the current aquifer protection study.

Future requirements for the growth and possible expansion of the Woodstock Water System need to be understood.  The Town needs to determine the amount of growth the current water resources can support Federal and State regulations on drinking water are changing and may require new solutions to insure uninterrupted water supplies for Woodstock.

The cost of filtering surface water, establishing a Woodstock Reservoir, or reclaiming an existing reservoir such as the silt-filled Kingston Reservoir #2 that was once capable of holding up to 40 million gallons of water should be understood. These are very extensive and expensive alternatives that may be avoided if the Town will claim the Woodstock Aquifer as a public resource, protect it from contamination, and manage the asset in a responsible manner.


G. G. Washington, 11/04/02
gwashington@hvc.rr.com