Letter to Congressman Frank Wolf in reference Raspberry Falls Community - January 2010

January 2010

Mrs McCary,

 

Thank you very much for meeting with us yesterday. To summarize our requested meeting, we are residents of Raspberry Falls, a Van Metre community located on Route 15 just north of Leesburg. The community consists of approximately 150 homes. The first 25 homes were built with private wells (no treatment) and septic systems in the mid 1990's. The remainder were built, and are still being built, starting in 2002 and are supplied by a community well (no filtration methods, chlorine only) and wastewater treatment plant.

 

Our community is surrounded by sinkholes, and livestock (cattle & buffalo).

Our community has 2 EPA 303 impaired streams (E-coli).

 

The underlying geology of Raspberry Falls is limestone karst. According to the Loudoun County web site:

"Because of the rapid transport of water from the ground surface in karst terrain, there is a high risk of pollution because groundwater in karst aquifers travels quickly, contaminates can be transmitted quickly to wells .. in the areas connected to that aquifer....Private drinking water wells located in karst aquifers are more susceptible to contamination than those in other types of aquifers. These contaminants can include bacteria (from animal wastes, or failing drain fields), pesticides and fertilizers in runoff, and hazardous substances that were not properly disposed (such as motor oil and other house hold chemicals)."

 

Unfortunately for our community, the County's description of the risk turned out to be correct. Hundreds of tests performed by Loudoun Water (our waterworks agency) have shown elevated and dangerous levels of e. coli , coliform bacteria, and algae in our wells.  And because our groundwater is contaminated by these contaminants it is our concern that our finished water is invariably also contaminated by an unknown host of pollutants. Chlorine may kill bacteria but not other biological and chemical contaminants invariably occurring in well water contaminated by surface water such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium, or a multitude of unknown toxic mixtures.  We have also had multiple oil spills, most notably 2000 gallons of diesel fuel in 1995.  Our concerns also extend to multiple buried chemical storage tanks dating back to the 1960's, the contents or structural soundness  of these tanks is unknown even by the DEQ.  One of our well casings has been noted as rusting.  Our community is riddled with test wells that have not been properly abandoned and/or no locks to secure them. 

 

In addition to the threats to our health caused by the biological and chemical contamination that inevitably occurs in wells in limestone karst regions, something in the water or the chemical treatment currently being provided by Loudoun Water is causing pinhole leaks in the copper pipes in many of our homes.  New homes in our community have had 55 known leaks to date.  All  homes less than 7 years old.  An expert consulted by Loudoun Water has investigated and predicted that the corrosive effects of our water will damage copper pipes over time in our homes with a 100% probability of occurrence.

 

We understand the County's resistance to providing our community with public (i.e. safe) drinking water is based upon current zoning plans and its desire to limit future development down the Route 15 corridor.  Obviously, we do not believe these are acceptable reasons to deny our community safe drinking water.  We have had discussions with Van Metre via phone, they offered a community meeting which never came to fruition.   Accordingly, we   are in the process of retaining attorneys to contact Van Metre and the County to seek connection of our community to the Town of Leesburg's public water and sewer lines. These lines were extended last year to the County's new high school under construction on Route 15 immediately south of Raspberry Falls, presumably because the County did not believe that its own property should be served by well water. If the County continues to be  unwilling to connect our homes to the public water and sewer lines, we will consider litigation as a last resort but a necessity in view of the risk to our health and investments in our homes.  We welcome Congressman Wolf's interest in our problem and look forward to continuing our discussion with you to try to find a reasonable solution. We are particularly interested in learning moreabout the process that resulted in connection of the communities surrounding the Loudoun County Landfill  to town water in 2004 in order to eliminate the threat created by the landfill because we are subject to a very similar threat.

Thank You,

Holly Krauss

Raspberry Falls Water Committee Member

 

Following is an article that helps to summarize our health concerns:

 

"Water Contamination." World of Forensic Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Gale Cengage, 2006.eNotes.com. 2006. 7 Jan, 2010 <http://www.enotes.com/forensic-science/

water-contamination>

 

 

Water contamination is a concern, since the organisms present can cause disease. Typically, these pathogenic organisms are normally residents of the intestinal tract of warm-blooded animals, including humans. Examples include Salmonella, Shigella andVibrio. In addition, certain types of the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli can cause infections. A particularly noxious form of E. coli designated O157:H7 can be devastating. O157:H7 contamination of the municipal water supply of Walkerton, Ontario, Canada, in the summer of 2000 sickened over 2,000 people and killed seven others. The intestinal tract also contains viruses (i.e., rotavirus, enterovirus, and coxsackievirus) that can contaminate water and cause disease.

 

A number of protozoan microorganisms can contaminate water. The two most prominent are members of the genera Giardia and Cryptosporidium. These microorganisms normally live in the intestinal tract of animals such as beaver and deer. The increasing contamination of water by these protozoans reflects the increasing encroachment of urban areas on wilderness.

 

Municipal drinking water is usually treated to minimize the risk of the contamination of the water with the above microbes. Thebenefits of water treatment have been reaped for millennia. Thousands of years ago, it was known that the storage of drinking water in metal jugs preserved the water's quality due to the antibacterial effects of the metal ions (although this property was not known until centuries later). Similarly, the protection of water quality by the boiling of the water, which kills the noxious microorganism, has long been known. "Boil water orders" are still routinely issued in municipalities when the water quality is suspect.

 

Water that is obtained from wells is often protected from contamination by the natural filtering action of the soil and rocky underlayers that the water percolates down through. However, if a well cover or internal casing is broken, then the well water can be directly contaminated.

 

Surface water supplies are especially prone to contamination, from run-off and the deposition of feces in the water from birds and animals. Surface water that is used as the drinking water supply for an individual or a community should be rigorously treated to ensure that microorganisms, debris, and chemicals have been removed prior to use of the water.

 

One popular treatment is chlorination. Addition of antibacterial disinfectant compounds, particularly chlorine or derivatives of chlorine, to water has been practiced for over a century. Other treatments that kill bacteria include the use of a gas called ozone and shining ultraviolet light through the water to disrupt the bacterial genetic material. The refinement of filters now allows even viruses to be excluded from filter-treated water.

 

The killing of the protozoan microorganisms has proved to be challenging, as both Giardia and Cryptosporidium form dormant and chemically resistant structures called cysts during their life cycles. The cyst forms are resistant to chlorine and can pass through the filters typically used in water treatment plants. Contamination of the water supply of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with Cryptosporidium in 1993 sickened over 400,000 people and killed at least 47 people.

 

Water contamination can also involve inorganic compounds <http://www.enotes.com/forensic-science/inorganic-compounds> . Gasoline, oil, pesticides, and other noxious chemicals can also contaminate water. These can be especially insidious, since, unlike microorganisms, they can persist in the water for a long time.