Report: Miami water supply at greater risk than expected
South Florida Business Journal - by Paul Brinkmann
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey have published a report stating that Miam's public water supply from the Miami-Dade Northwest Wellfield is at risk of contamination due to the proximity of existing lakes created from limestone rock mining activities.
The report and a press release issued Wednesday comes amid ongoing litigation over the U.S. Army Corps of Engineering's mining permits in the area filed in 2002 by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.
The Miami-Dade Limestone Products Association immediately denounced the USGS report in a responding press release as "flawed and irresponsible."
According to the USGS press release, scientists conducted experiments in 2004 to determine how chemical contaminants and pathogens would move through the Biscayne aquifer. A complete report on the test results was published recently in the Geological Society of America Bulletin.
Tests were conducted by injecting a tracer solution into the aquifer for a period of one hour. The solution was still detected about a week later in the public water supply wells.
"This indicates that if a contamination event occurs in the Biscayne aquifer that continues for days, weeks, or months it has the potential to degrade water quality and could persist from years to decades," said Dr. Allen Shapiro, a USGS research hydrologist involved in the study, in the press release.
The agency said of particular concern is the potential movement of pathogens in the groundwater, such as Cryptosporidium parvum, from limestone-rock mine lakes to the production wells. Cryptosporidium parvum is commonly recognized as a pathogen of concern because of its resistance to chemical disinfection.
But Kerri Barsh, an attorney representing the Limestone Products Association, said in a press release Thursday that monitoring data and a quarter-century of operations have "proven that the drinking water supply from Miami- Dade's Northwest Wellfield is, and will continue to be, safe and protected."
Barsh also pointed out the USGS tests were taken into consideration by regulators years ago. The association's press release said no Cryptosporidia have ever been detected in the mining lakes or groundwater wells. It alleges the USGS made "numerous errors," such as including unsupportable mathematical assumptions and a "seriously flawed experimental design" and using "more than one hundred times the amount of dye necessary to run a realistic test."
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