Water Department will resume using Sugar Creek aquifer.
CANTON The city Water Department plans to resume using water wells near a Beach City area quarry that was a dumping site for diesel-tainted drilling mud.
Superintendent Tyler Converse on Monday said testing confirmed the city’s aquifer hadn’t been contaminated, but the Water Department would monitor the supply indefinitely.
Rover Pipeline workers in April spilled 2 million gallons of bentonite clay into a wetland while boring a path for the pipeline beneath the Tuscarawas River in Bethlehem Township.
One quarry was near Aqua Ohio wells north of Massillon.
The other quarry was close to the Water Department’s Sugar Creek aquifer near Beach City.
Testing by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency later showed the slurry was tainted with diesel fuel, and federal authorities ordered Rover to remove the slurry and install wells to monitor groundwater.
Rover has removed the slurry from the Beach City quarry, and monitoring wells placed by Rover and the city, along with the city’s production wells, haven’t shown signs of contamination, “so, there shouldn’t be anything left to cause an issue,” Converse said.
The Water Department routinely rotates well pumping, and will discuss when to begin using the Sugar Creek aquifer, one of the city’s three underground water sources.
Reach Shane at 330-580-8338 or shane.hoover@cantonrep.com