137 home drinking water wells tested
When it settled its legal dispute in 1990 with Browning Ferris Industries over out-of-state garbage coming into BFI's Poland township landfill, the Mahoning County Board of Health suddenly found that it now had the money it needed to start a laboratory for testing groundwater - with a $200,000 endowment from BFI and an annual subsidy from the Mahoning County Solid Waste Management District. Board of Health president Leonard Perry and health commissioner Matthew Stefanak had first proposed such a lab to test homeowners' wells around Mahoning County landfills in 1988, when legislation to allow local governments to collect fees from landfills was enacted in Ohio.
The Board of Health lab began operating in a 24-foot trailer behind the Mahoning County Joint Vocational School in October, 1993. The trailer, although cramped, allowed lab director Lee Benson and his staff to do most lab tests themselves rather than contracting for more expensive testing with other labs. By the end of 1996, the lab and solid waste programs at the Board of Health had collected and tested samples from 137 homes around the County's five landfills.
The testing program has quelled some homeowners' fears about leaking landfills contaminating their drinking water. "I appreciate knowing, through the program, that my water is safe to drink," Jim Stacy of Lowellville told Rick Setty, Chief of the Board of Health's landfill inspection program.
Groundwater surveillance programs like Mahoning County's are designed to monitor groundwater around landfills and other pollution sources to insure that contaminants are not migrating from the sites. Officials from the Board of Health's laboratory services and solid waste programs compare the data they collect to monitoring data from wells on the landfill sites to detect changes in water quality that can affect public health.
Tom Jackson has lived next to a closed landfill in Canfield for a number of years. Testing of his well showed no apparent contamination from the landfill. Although he is happy with the results, he has concerns of a different nature. "I'm actually more concerned about all of the residential development going on around the area. There are no sewers yet, so all the homes are on household sewage systems. There is an increased chance of sewage contamination of my drinking water if these systems malfunction," he said.