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The Middle Trinity Groundwater
Conservation District met in regular session, Thursday, August 2, and
addressed a brief agenda.
All board members -- Ed Dittfurth, George
Bingham, Jerry Hinshaw, Chairman Rodney Stephens, Jerry Fronterhouse
and Fred Parker -- were in attendance, as were Joe Cooper, MTGCD
general manager; Sharon Mainord, administrative assistant; and Wes
Burris, field technician. There were three audience members, including
two media representatives. There were no public comments.
In the Manager’s Report, Joe Cooper
reported that the water testing lab is complete, and that the District
had already tested some Comanche County well water for a couple living
on Hwy. 16 south of DeLeon.
“They were both sick,” Cooper said, “and
they thought they had a polluted well. So we took a sample and ran it,
and it was very, very full of fecal coliform and e-coli, it was nasty
water.”
Cooper said that the couple believed that
the contaminants were coming from an old well on a neighboring piece
of property. He then reported that efforts to get the old well plugged
were proving difficult, because the person who claimed to own the
property could not prove ownership, and “the District cannot plug a
well when we know we’re not dealing with the owner.”
Cooper then mentioned that since the
District couldn’t legally plug it, the person involved was willing to
have someone else do it. “And that’s fine,” he said, “because this is
a problem that needs to be fixed.”
According to Cooper, the location of the
old well is such that when it rains, water pools there, and that water
flows between the two wells. Cooper also noted that “The (old) well
has a less than sufficient cap, not a plug.”
The directors and Cooper then discussed
various methods that could be utilized to clean up both wells
involved, including shocking the well with chlorine, and blowing out
the old one.
“If they don’t clean that well, before
they plug it, they’re still going to get that stuff in they’re water,”
Director Jerry Fronterhouse said, “because it’s in the well.”
The directors then discussed various ways
to help with the situation. “I think that’s what we’re here for,”
Chairman Stephens said.
“We can go out there and clean it out for
them,” Cooper said, “but we cannot plug it, without having the owner
on-site while we’re doing it.”
Stephens reiterated that he thought the
District should offer to clean out the well. Some of the other
directors agreed, while some still wanted to help find a way to also
plug the well, even if it took a court order, since it could be
considered an emergency situation.
“Couldn’t the people who’s well is now
contaminated get a court order?” Sharon Mainord asked.
“Yes,” Jerry Hinshaw said, “the people
who are getting contaminated are the ones who need to do that, or
you’ll get us right in the middle of some problems.”
A general discussion followed regarding
the situation, and everyone agreed to do whatever the district legally
can do to help remedy the situation. It was later noted that this is
an example of how dangerous it can be to have abandoned, or old unused
wells that are not plugged.
The next agenda item was a report on the
cost of year-round advertising for well plugging, in which Cooper
noted that advertising was more expensive than he was aware of.
After a brief discussion, in which
Director George Bingham said he believed it was vital to offer the
well-plugging at no cost to the well owner, directors voted to approve
an advertising budget for two months (skipping one month in between)
and to advertise both the well-plugging assistance, and the new lab.
In other business, Directors:
• Approved the minutes from the July
meeting.
• Approved payment of the bills.
• Reviewed the income and expense
comparison, in which Cooper noted that the district was “balanced to
the penny” in their accounts.
• Reviewed the preliminary 2008 budget.
• Reviewed current data entry methods and
possibilities to expedite the process.
• Approved changes to the insurance
deductibles for the District’s employees. |
