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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