The Metro West Daily News (MA) reports:
Ten years and $39.8 million later, the Natick Soldier Systems Center has reduced by 80 percent the concentration of contaminants in the groundwater of the Superfund site near Lake Cochituate. The long and complicated cleanup — which faces stages in which chemicals will be harder to remove — could still take 20 more years and at least $20 million.[...]
A treatment plant has been cleaning [trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene] since 1998 by airing the chemicals into carbon filters and discharging clean water. TCE and PCE have been detected in three different areas of the 12 identified sites. The plant cleanup has cost between $2 million to $5 million per year over the last few years and the facility has pumped and treated 210 million gallons of water so far. The cleanup area of groundwater — known as T-25 — is about 2,200 feet from the Springvale Wells, which supply drinking water to Natick. Although 80 percent of the concentration of TCE and PCE has been removed, the remaining 20 percent will be the hardest to get rid of, raising costs even higher.
[...]
Things, however, could get complicated soon. If the town approves a state plan to put herbicides in the lake to control weed growth, state officials will have to be very careful on where they dump those chemicals, said Natick’s environmental compliance officer Bob Bois. The removal of the weeds — known as milfoil — could make their roots break up the soil and spread the contamination into the water, said Bois. “We want to make sure this does not make the problem worse,” he said.
Read the full story here
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