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April 18, 2007 Bryan Board of Public Affairs Aquifer area defined, protection efforts move forward By LOU PENDLETON Residents crowded the Bryan Board of Public Affairs meeting Tuesday night to learn more about the MICHINDOH Glacial Aquifer that supplies drinking water for nearly 400,000 residents in nine counties in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. Todd Feenstra, a hydrogeologist and owner of Tritium Inc., presented GIS-based research gathered to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Sole Source Aquifer (SSA) designation of the area groundwater supply. The U.S. EPA defines a sole source aquifer as one that supplies 50 percent or more of the drinking water for residents within the aquifer boundary and for which there are no feasible alternative sources should the aquifer become contaminated. Mr. Feenstra’s research defined the boundaries for which the MICHINDOH is the sole source of drinking water. The Board of Public Affairs is seeking the SSA designation in order to increase protection of the aquifer and to use the research as a management tool to promote responsible growth. Additionally, the research delineates critical aquifer protection areas, and ultimately can be used to inform the public about the aquifer and prevent financial hardship caused by contamination. Mr. Feenstra showed GIS maps of the soils, sand and gravel deposits, bedrock and groundwater recharge for the area. He also added 13,000 well logs, groundwater contours, flow lines, and groundwater basin divides to the map. “We can now trace the path of water anywhere within the aquifer, and we know the areas that are most vulnerable,” said Mr. Feenstra. “The information you have at your fingertips is an incredible planning tool to promote responsible growth.” Mr. Feenstra also presented population and income statistics for each of the communities within the aquifer area and estimated the costs of alternative sources of water. For Bryan, the cheapest alternative source would be the Tiffin River and the cost would be $24.8 million – considerably more than what the U.S. EPA defines as “economically feasible” based on mean annual income of individual households. Mr. Feenstra presented a revised map of the aquifer boundaries that will be the area petitioned to the U.S. EPA for sole source aquifer designation. Delineation of the boundaries were determined by groundwater basin divides on the northwest and northeast, the physical extent of the aquifer on the south and southeast and by the economic feasibility of an alternative supplies on the west. The Sole Source Aquifer program was established in the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. If the EPA Administrator determines that the aquifer is the principal source of drinking water for an area, the program provides for EPA review of projects receiving federal funding planned for the area to insure that the projects are designed and constructed in a manner that does not create a hazard to public health. Mr. Feenstra’s presentation on the MICHINDOH Glacial Aquifer will be rebroadcast of BMU TV Channel 4 on Thursday, April 19 at 7 p.m. and on Friday, April 20 at 10 a.m. In other business, the BPA voted to refund Bryan Municipal Utilities’ electric customers $167,592 from American Electric Power (AEP) through the power supply cost adjustment. Steve Casebere, director of utilities, said that AEP made errors in metering from April to October 2006. Bryan Municipal Utilities discovered the error in October 2006 and sought the refund. The correction also affected 15 other communities that receive power from AEP. The refund will be applied to electric bills sent out after April 17 and equal about $8.00 for the average residential customer. The average commercial customer will receive about $30 and the average industrial customer $2,300. Mr. Casebere said the refund for the utility’s largest industrial electric customer is $23,000. The Board also:
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