Hg Wells

Well test rules will toughen Board sets standards, 2006 start By Dan Shapley Poughkeepsie Journal The Dutchess County Board of Health will require that private wells be tested for contamination whenever real estate is transferred, starting in 2006. The board also voted Thursday to require that all new wells drilled after Jan. 1, 2006, be tested after being drilled. And it will require that landlords test wells at tenant properties by the end of 2006 and again every three years thereafter. There will be no new requirements for existing wells, but the board will recommend in the sanitary code that homeowners test their wells every six years. ''Our job is to protect the public health,'' said Dr. William Augerson, the board member who drafted the new rules. Before the rules can take force, the county attorney must review them and the board must hold public hearings about the proposed changes. The board has the authority to require permits for wells, and all the new regulations would be tied to that authority, members said. The Department of Health is responsible for enforcing the sanitary code, which the board can amend without approval of the county's executive or Legislature. The vote came after months of discussion, prompted by requests from county Executive William Steinhaus and the Dutchess Legislature for recommendations about how to better ensure that drinking water from private wells is safe for consumption. The rules would have similarities to a state law in New Jersey and a new law in Rockland County. Public water supplies are subjected to a battery of tests periodically, but testing private wells is the responsibility of individual homeowners. The importance of protecting people who drink from the county's estimated 40,000 privately-owned wells emerged in recent years after colorless, odorless contamination was discovered in private wells in several Dutchess County neighborhoods. In one, the rural Shenandoah area of East Fishkill, a state health analysis predicted that residents who drank the polluted water for many years face a higher risk of developing cancer because of the tetrachloroethylene allegedly dumped at a secluded workshop by an IBM Corp. contractor in the 1960s and 1970s. The drive to regulate private wells began with a citizen's petition in the Shenandoah neighborhood in 2000. Verna Wren, a resident of Shenandoah, said mandatory well testing is ''in the best interest of all of us. "It's one of the best things that ever came out of this, that we are helping not just ourselves out but everybody else in the future by having wells tested as a precaution,'' she added. Permit fees possible In addition to the sanitary code changes, the board will recommend that county government put money toward creating a database about well water quality that will help pinpoint problem areas and refine testing requirements in the future. It will recommend that the county establish permit fees to fund the well-testing program, and it will reiterate its support for hooking those now using private wells to central water systems. According to a draft letter, the board will also recommend that the county charge all owners of wells a fee the county could pool and use to pay for testing existing private wells. But it acknowledged this proposal is unlikely to be adopted because of the cost. Dan Shapley can be reached at dshapley@poughkeepsiejournal.com