Hernando Today
Health Department Expands Arsenic Testing
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Published: April 11, 2008
SPRING LAKE - Sue Melendez never could bear to drink the water that came out of her well.
"I just didn't like the taste of it," Melendez said Thursday as she stood under towering pines and oak trees on her five-acre property off Birt Street, just south Powell Road near its intersection with Emerson Road.
Melendez, who has lived in the home since 1984, will soon find out if the decision benefited more than her taste buds.
Hers is among the latest of more than 300 wells in the Spring Lake area to be tested for unsafe levels of arsenic since February of last year. The study area continues to expand as Hernando County Health Department officials leap frog from one tainted well to another.
When test results for a well comes back with more than 10 parts per billion - the level considered unsafe by both the state and federal government - the study area expands to a half-mile radius from that well.
Now, however, residents who live outside of those areas but who have concerns about arsenic can have their wells tested through the health department, said Al Gray, the department's environmental manager.
It's a positive change for residents and health officials alike, Gray said.
Until the change went into effect about two weeks ago, residents who lived outside the study area had to collect their own samples and send or deliver them to a private lab. The closest lab is in Tampa.
For $60, the health department will send its own environmental specialist to collect a sample, which is then sent for testing to the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee. For $20, residents can collect their own sample and deliver it to the health department's Brooksville office.
When residents go through a private lab, the health department doesn't get the data unless the resident provides it, and even then the department must retest the well to confirm the results, Gray said.
That will help create a more complete picture as the tainted wells are mapped, Gray said. The Florida Department of Environmental is using that data to try to pinpoint sources of the arsenic.
Several residents have already taken the department up on the offer, Gray said.
"Most people want us to come out (and do the test)," he said.
Residents whose wells have unsafe arsenic levels qualify for a free filter from DEP. The so-called "point-of-entry" systems filter all the water that goes into the home, and several have already been installed in the Spring Lake area.
Confounding patterns
As the list of tainted wells lengthens, however, no clear pattern is developing, said Mark Springer, environmental specialist with the health department, who is conducting the well tests.
In some cases, wells within 100 feet of one another come back with drastically different results, Springer said.
The region's complex hydrology, characterized by layers of limestone and clay above the aquifer, could be a reason, Springer said. As well, officials have a hunch the arsenic is likely coming from multiple sources throughout the county.
Arsenic is a natural element found on the periodic table and is often found in water at low levels. But it also is a by-product of agricultural and industrial uses that can cause elevated levels in wells.
Long-term ingestion of arsenic has been linked to cancer of the bladder, lungs, skin, kidneys, nasal passages, liver and prostate. Studies have shown that contact with the skin, such as during bathing, does not cause health problems.
One of the suspected sources of arsenic in Hernando County is the pesticides used for agricultural operations such as orange groves, which once covered hundreds of acres in Spring Lake.
Another possible culprit: So-called "dip vats" used until 1964 to treat cattle with chemical concoctions to kill the ticks that caused cattle fever. The pits, usually made of concrete and about seven feet long, were typically emptied each spring, according to the Florida Extension Service. The used chemicals were typically dumped in pits or buried.
There are 36 suspected vats in Hernando County, Springer said. Cattle have grazed on the gently rolling hills of Spring Lake for decades, and many of the vats themselves have since been buried.
The health department began collecting the samples in February 2007 after a Batten Road resident voiced concerns about high levels found during a test at her home.
Since then, more than 100 wells in the area have had unsafe levels, Springer said.
So far, the highest test results - 236 parts per billion, or more than 23 times the acceptable level - came from a well near the intersection of Old Spring Lake and Neff Lake roads, Springer said. A few wells in that area have tested at 10 times the safe level, and half a dozen have ranged between twice and five times the safe level.
An orange grove still exists nearby.
Melendez, the Birt Street resident, has been toting water to her house in a five-gallon cooler to quench the thirsts of her cats and her Standard-bred horse Rosie since the news broke of arsenic-tainted wells.
The test results should come back within four weeks, Springer said Thursday as he filled a plastic bottle from Melendez's well.
Melendez, an unemployed framer, said she hopes the results come back very low. The second best result, she said, is that the results are beyond the acceptable level so she can qualify for the free filter, which can retail for $700 or more.
She hopes to avoid the fate of her neighbor, whose test results came just within the safe level, which Melendez said would still be too high for comfort.
She said she can believe the theory about pesticides, which might not bode well for her.
"Birt Street," she said, "was once a path through an orange grove."
Arsenic testing
To find out more about how to get your well tested for arsenic, call Mark Springer, environmental specialist for the Hernando County Health Department, at 352-544-6846.
Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.
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