(The Idaho State Journal published the following story by Zach Wesley on its website on July 7.)
POCATELLO, Idaho — Union Pacific met its deadline for instillation of a carbon filtration system Thursday on the transmission line from City Well 30 Thursday.
The project was originally pegged for completion June 27, but UP asked for an extension on the deadline until Thursday because a contractor failed to provide pipe for the system before UP’s deadline.
“This is a significant step that we had outlined and agreed to with the project,” said Dennis Romankowski, project manager for Forrester Group which was hired by UP to build the filtration system.
The filtration system is part of UP’s Corrective Action Plan filed with the Department of Environmental Quality to clean up contamination from five decades of diesel spills.
If diesel contamination is detected in Well 30, which is 200 feet from UP’s refueling facility under Benton Street Overpass, water from Well 30 will be diverted to the filtration system and pumped through carbon which will remove the diesel contaminant.
The danger of diesel contamination in drinking water is that it can cause cancer with frequent use over long periods of time, DEQ officials said.
“There is no reason for people in town to be concerned. This is an interim measure and if anything goes wrong there is this thing here,” Romankowski said.
The next step in UP’s plan is to build a replacement well for Well 30 at Rainey Park. The filtration system is in place as a precautionary measure until that well is complete, according to UP’s plan.
A test of the filtration system was run Thursday with city, DEQ and UP representatives present. The filtration system met all of their expectations.
The system will remain on standby until diesel contaminant is detected, said Chuck Ketterman, DEQ water quality engineer who was at the test run.It will only be activated after contamination is detected.
“It’s doing everything we said it would and it’s not spraying water all over the place,” Ketterman said.
Well 30 pumped between 2,400 and 2,500 gallons of water per minute during the test. Well 30 is capable of pumping 2,800 gallons per minute depending on the city’s water usage.
The Pocatello Water Department is responsible for running the filtration system. The Forrester Group has provided the city with a manual on the system’s use.
The replacement well at Rainey Park is scheduled to be drilled before July 22, Ketterman said. It has a completion deadline of Jan. 1, 2004.
UP representatives will meet with DEQ and officials next week to finalize details on the new well’s construction.
How does City Well 30’s carbon filtration system, built by Union Pacific, work?- Water is pumped from Well 30 to Well 30’s reservoir which is the big blue tank near the Women’s Correctional Center.- If diesel contaminant is detected in Well 30 water will be diverted to the filtration system.- The filtration system consists of three tanks that hold 20,000 pounds of carbon each. The carbon removes diesel contaminant from the water. Each tank can filter 940 gallons of water per minute.- The water is then sent back into the reservoir and out to Pocatello.