[All] Symposium at Western University re:Water & Site 41

[Louisette Lanteigne]

Hi folks

Here are the minutes regarding Day 2 of the Site 41 Symposium at the University of Western Ontario.

Terry Carter, MNR London, Geologist

-Vertical fractures tend to show up at levels of 1-3 meters. Water can also get into the ground by way of vugular porosity, fossil porosity and sandstone. 
-Shales are aquitards "for the most part".
-Clay aquitards are impervious
-Acid rain dissolves limestone so weathering affects rocks.
- Aquicludes are salt layer that stop water by dissolving water and water resources found under that, under Guelph Cambrian levels are salty
-Sulfur water can corrode casings. 
- most of the mapping is based on subsurface oil, gas and water well data and data gathered by the Ontario Geological Survey. 

Q&A : I told him Clay aquitards allow water through but at a slower rate. It's not 100% impervious. Our leaky landfills in Waterloo prove that theory.  I also stated just because an area is covered in clay, it may still act as a recharge transferring water from point A to B depending on the topography and adjacent water features. I pointed out an example of an area on the the Chapman and Putman map he was using where an area identified as recharge was clearly surrounded with areas marked clay. He agreed more information on connectivity issues would be beneficial. 

Someone mentioned concerns regarding Lockport Dolomite close to where Nestle is taking water from Aberfoyle and it was mentioned that fluorite and (..I'm not sure if it was gadolinium or gallium) is also an issue around there.
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Legacy of Glaciation for Groundwater Resource Management: Emmanuel Arnaud U of Guelph Glacial Geology.

-Laurentide Ice sheet covered most of our area 20,000 years ago to a depth of 1km thick ice. (for great glacial photos, look up Peter Knight)
-Eskers are snake like winding areas of raised land created by glaciers.
-Drumlins are hill like features
-Moraines have hummoky topography aka rolling hilly area.

Deposits are composed of:
Sand and gravel: small, 
Silt and Clay: bigger
Diamict/Till: Combination of mixed sediment types

We get our water from Glacial deposits or bedrock aquifers.

Lobes are created from the high water tables that used to exist overtop the land mass. As the water retreated into various lakes, the evidence of their volume and the retreat can still be seen in land features and glacial deposits. In our area and the area of Site 41 we have Georgial Bay Lobe, Simcoe Lobe, Ontario Lobe, Huron Lobe and Erie Lobe. 
A community influenced by one lobe has a far more "predictable" and relatively consistent layout of sediment types but ...

* Waterloo is located in the JUNCTION of multiple lobes giving us the 
geological composition of a dog's breakfast. Everything is everywhere. 
It's unpredictable and complex. Hard to predict. Waterloo falls in the path of former water volumes connected to  Lake Ontario, Simcoe and Georgian Bay. 

It is tricky to "date" lobes because it requires organic materials. Kettle ponds can help with this.

Handy maps include Chapman and Putnams Physiography of Ontario Map and Nike Eyles map of Glacial Lakes. 

Site 41 is in the Elmvale area, which includes Simcoe Lowlands and uplands. The area has evidence of "relic shorelines".  The data shows that from 13,000 the ice retreated and came back twice before the final retreat in 11,000. 

The Simcoe upland contains coarse grain, permeable material and the Simcoe lowlands contain silt, clay fine grain believed to be impervious with water found at 10-15 meters. They are only using bore holes to determine the current data, with 
depths going to 27-28 meters based on tests taken in 1997 in the month of January. That
 is the data used by Jagger Hims Ltd., the company that was doing the 
EIS for Site 41. 

It was Q & A so that point I questioned the theory of the impervious surfaces in the lowlands and explained how outwash till can appear impervious due to a shingling distribution with gaps of recharge in between formed by washes as the glaciers melt.  Bore holes won't catch that because the plugs look as if the area is level.  I told them unless they do a Ground Penetrating Radar approach, the area may actually be prime recharge. She agreed more data is needed and she didn't know if any GPR studies have been done here or not. She has not seen such data to date. I also told her seasonal varients must also be considered for bore hole testing and she agreed that would be valuable to determine water levels but with her work the focus is on the sediment itself. She stated, "We need greater control of the age of the deposit and we need to determine geometry and connectivity to aquifers."
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William Shotyk, Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Heidelberg
Re: Artisian Flows in tiny township

Trivia: Tiny, Tay and Flos Township were actually named by Lord John Graves Simcoe's wife's dogs. 

In the area of Site 41, there are a series of artisian wells that begins with the one across the street from Site 41 called the Parnell, folllowed by the Pigeon, the Johnson, Temolder, Belluz and one by Hwy 27. Initial testing conducted by Mr. Shotyk was to get a chemical test of the water before the work on Site 41. 

He conducted multiple studies on the well by Hwy. 27 and found no Tritium. The results were 10 to the minus 18. Since his parents have owned the Johnson artisian well, he set up two test wells, one out of surgical stainless steal and the other out of polyethelyne, both fully sanitized in Germany with acid. Hydraulic connectivity was 10 to the minus 8 at the clay layer in his 13m well. There was no trace of nitrate, phosphate or tritium in 20 years worth of data. The composition of this water actually had less chemical contaminates then the purest core samples of glaciers. The ph balance is 8. 

Other artisian wells in the network have tritium levels. Temolder at a depth of 9.1 m had 1.1 tritium, Parnell at a depth of 9m and the Pidgon well at a depth of 30m also had tritium but at various levels, not the same. This indicates that there are at least four different aquifers in the area.

In the month of March artisian water wells up on Site 41. 

An area land owner in Tiny Township tried to dig a well in the area and the water pressure shot up water 70 feet. Water companies in the area didn't know what to do to stop it. It eroded the foundation of his home to the point the house was condemned. Finally Canadian Well Drilling came in and helped stop the flooding.

Tiny Township officials released a statement that "not all the wells are fit for consumption" but in truth it was not due to toxicity issues. It was due to high iron from the calcium carbonate that surpassed levels of aesthetics for taste.

Water samples from the Johnson wells were sent to be tested for trace metals and isotopic analysis at the University of Heidelberg in a metal free, *clean lab with less than 10 particles per cubic square foot of air. The sensitivity of the study is so fine it can detect the lead particulates generated from the smelting of iron during the Roman era. 

*In Canada, Trent University can conduct similar testing. Peter Dillion is the guy to contact.

The data shows variances in the types of well fawcet used. If the water came from a brass tap, it ads lead. If the tap is switched to stainless steal, it contains 1000pm of lead and contains zinc, and Cadmium. The polyethelyne has no lead but it does contain vanadium at double the level of stainless steal. This is because metals are added to the plastic to change density.   

The results showed remarkably pure water. So pure that the cleanest filter would not be able to filter the water without contaminating it. 

Mr. Shotyk went to observe water testing at Site 41, how the studies were conducted. Instead of using an artisian well,  they manually pumped out water mixed with sediment, filtered it and tested it. The readings found 300 parts per billion of aluminum whereas it conflicted with his data of 3ppb taken across the street at the artisian well.  There was 1000 ppb of Vanadium and the chrome was over 800ug/l. There was copper and lead and the reason for the difference was the contamination of colloids and does not reflect the actual water composition.

The testing conducted by the MOE do not use filters designed to determine anything except what exceeds drinking water standards and the system is laced with cross contamination concerns. All the studies conducted by the ministries showed trace metals higher than the 20 years of data gathered. The standards of polar ice detection shows more accurate information. 

The Parnell artisan well has flow 30 years old but the natural purification level is exceptional at 99.99%. Snow studies and water studies reveal how well the water filters contaminates. It filters out nitrates, phosphates, pesticides including Atrazine etc.

Elmvale's Tap water is contaminated by Trichloroethane, Bromodichloromethane and Dibromochloro. The groundwater is much cleaner. 
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Civil Engineer, Canada Research Chair in Geoenvironmental Restoration Engineering
Jason Gerhard.

-30.9% of Canada's water supply is groundwater
-90% of gas stations leak due to corrosion
-In China there are areas where people fill up their cars with well water because it's so full of diesel. 
-People used to discharge contaminates away from their communities on dry dirt because it was believed that chemicals evaporate. Only 5% did, the other 95% went to bedrock which contaminates groundwater. 
-In Quebec, quarries were used as waste disposal sites until two miles away, someone filled their tub with black goo from the damaged water supply along the bedrock.
-Today's risks include: Organic and inorganic chemicals, endocrine disrupters, nano particles and flame retardants
-Chlorinated solvents are frequently seen in Ontario. Many areas exceed levels 100 times the MOE limit. 
-For every dollar spent on restoration, it adds $4 of economic benefit to the economy.
-It has the potential to gain $7 billion in net benefit as well as health benefits and improved community sustainability. 

Dig in the dump is only an in situ remedy. It doesn't do anything to actually stop the problem. 

Chromium 3: Found in nature, it's a trace nutrient that people need. 
Chromium 6: Liver damage, internal hemorrhage, cancer.
Ontario water quality level: 1ppb.

Phytoremediation can help. (plants/ constructed wetlands)
It bio-accumulates in plants or degrades contaminates in soil by extraction, stabilization (you can recover metals) Volatilization, Transformation and Degradation. 

TCE - Good movie, "A Civil Action" with John Travolta
-TCE is a metal cleaner also used in computer manufacturing and electronics
-in situ bioremediation with bacteria that "eats" solvents. 
The bacteria eats the chloride and converts the  TCE to Dichloroethene, then it continues to eat converting that to Vinal Chloride than finally it is reduced to Ethene. This work has been proven successful in 160 tests across 4 labs. 

The bacteria remains within 3m of the injection site, it clings on to the sediment where it stays and passively consumes the contaminates. When the food supply is gone it dies off. If the ph is below 5 1/2, the bugs tend to shut down. They don't like acidic environments that much. 

Q & A: When I mentioned the Vinal Chloride leaking from the Waterloo landfill, he stated it would work very well in this situation. The risk of the process is that Vinal Chloride is the most toxic of the chemical transitions so if your already starting the process with that chemical you have nothing to lose and the end results come quickly. There is a VERY high chance of success. 

Steven Renzetti: The economics of water

The number of Canadian Economists looking at the issue of water is very low but it must be done because we can't avoid it. It has many applications and we can't formulate a cost benefit analysis without it. In order to make allocation decisions and to form meaningful source water protection we need this information.

Currently, if all the water permits in Saskatchewan were in full use, it would surpass the actual renewable supply which would violate agreements along the Saskatchewan/Alberta boarder and that would violate agreements. 

We must understand private and public benefits. We must understand uses for personal use, non use and passive use values, (knowing it's there and available) as well as existence values aka preventing destruction of the resource.  The total economic value or TEV is the combination of all these considerations.

Direct methods: Ask households about their use, Contingent valuation aka lawuits and choice experiments - would you be willing to pay this?

When the Gulf oil spill hit, lawyers were calling Economists to put a value on the losses. 

Current Canadian Estimates lack peer reviewed snapshots, are specific to location, use and method but they need to follow tables to summerize what we know and don't know. 

Currently water is selling for less than $1 per cubic metre.  Only 70% of water costs are actually covered by municipal water fees. We're using more but paying less for it. The value is half what it used to be and agricultural water takings are not measured. 

Council of Canadian Ministers of Environment Municipal Wastewater Effluent National Strategy did a study in Newfoundland that found it would cost $504 million to convert to a better system but the benefits would be worth $708 creating a net benefit of $204 million over 25 years. 

The PDF's of the day will be provided to those who attended the event so if anyone is interested in viewing this just drop me an email I'd be happy to share the info once it becomes available.

That's all folks

Lulu :0)

 





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