Toxic waste reaches Potomac Aquifer
Special Report: Delaware Drinking Water at Risk — What you haven’t been told about chemicals polluting the aquifer that serves Del., Md., N.J. 
By JEFF MONTGOMERY, The News Journal
July 25, 2010 Tainted groundwater is spreading across thousands of acres in northern Delaware and has reached the Potomac Aquifer, which supplies drinking water to people across much of Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey. In some areas of the upper Potomac near Delaware City and New Castle, concentrations of benzene, vinyl chloride and chlorinated benzenes are so high that exposure poses an immediate health threat. Elevated levels of these industrial byproducts significantly increase the risks of cancer. Sustained exposure could kill. Northern Delaware is home to some of the worst chemical dumping grounds in America, a legacy of broken promises and corporate misdeeds. Regulators working for Delaware and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have long claimed that the deep clay layers above the aquifer protected it from the foul waters discharged by chemical and petroleum manufacturers. Those assurances have proved false. The protective layer over the aquifer, scientists now say, is full of holes. To prevent a public health disaster, the state has banned public use of groundwater under or near the Delaware City petrochemical complex. Toxic pollutants, though, are now moving near the edge of that containment zone, outside the properties of Metachem, Occidental Chemical, Formosa Plastics and the Delaware City Refinery, and toward schools and houses. One plume of chemicals has traveled a mile south of the refinery’s main production area and has seeped 190 feet into the earth. While millions have been spent to test and track the spread of potentially lethal chemicals, little has been done to keep residents informed about the threats to their drinking water. Some of the worst polluters have walked away, leaving cleanups to taxpayers. … The News Journal spent a year investigating groundwater contamination and toxins moving through the soil. The investigation uncovered a damning history of corporate mistakes and lax government oversight, especially in the corridor bordered by the Delaware River, Du Pont Highway and the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. The newspaper obtained thousands of pages of corporate documents, consultant reports, hydrology and geology studies, well-water monitoring reports and ecological tests on fish and plants. The majority of the documents were gathered through state and federal Freedom of Information Act requests. Most have never been distributed to the public. Among The News Journal’s findings: Delaware City Refinery (cleanup led by former owner Motiva Enterprises). After nearly two decades of investigation, a Motiva consultant acknowledged to state regulators in 2008 that cleanup engineers don’t know the direction or extent of pollution moving under the refinery, according to a document never publicly released. Engineers sought approval to inject nitric acid deep into the ground to neutralize a plume of sodium hydroxide. The company retracted the request after a Delaware City resident, unaware of the project’s true purpose, requested a public hearing. …
