EPA releases last Dimock water tests

EPA releases last Dimock water tests by Laura Legere, May 12, 2012, Times Shamrock
On Friday and with each of three earlier rounds of sample releases, the agency said the results gave it no cause for either “immediate” or “further” action. In statements accompanying the first 31 results, it said the sampled water did not pose a health concern. … Twenty of the wells had methane above the state’s reporting threshold and five of those were at or above the EPA’s “trigger level” or the point when dissolved methane begins to escape into the atmosphere. The agency has said it has not done any detailed review to determine the cause of any contaminants. … Ronald Bishop, Ph.D., a chemistry lecturer at the State University of New York College at Oneonta, said detections of methane, oil and grease and 2-methoxyethanol, as well as elevated levels of sodium, arsenic, barium, lithium and manganese, “suggest that many of these homeowners’ water wells are significantly contaminated with a variety of pollutants in concentrations which are of concern to public health professionals.”