CANTON WATER SUPPLY STILL AT RISK? PERHAPS, ALSO HILLS & DALES, JACKSON, LAKE, LAWRENCE, MASSILLON, NORTH CANTON, PERRY, PLAIN AND TUSCARAWAS?

UPDATED WITH VIDEO:  10:10 AM

VIDEOS

CANTON WATER SUPERINTENDENT

TYLER CONVERSE

FIRST VIDEO

SCPR "EXCLUSIVE" VIDEO INTERVIEW

ON

STATUS OF CANTON WATER SUPPLY

SECOND VIDEO

UPDATING COUNCIL

WITH INPUT BY

CANTON LAW DIRECTOR

JOE MARTUCCIO

On April 13th of this year, there was a spill of what turned out to be diesel fuel contaminated drilling mud being used in the installation of the Rover natural gas carrying pipeline.

The accidental spill occurred in the process of boring a passageway for the pipeline under the Tuscarawas River near Canton's Sugarcreek well field and near water sources used by Aqua Ohio to service homes and businesses of a number of Stark County's townships.

The contractor installing the pipeline placed the accidently spilled—contaminated with diesel fuel drilling mud—in two quarries:  one near Beach City and Sugarcreek; one near Massillon near Aqua Ohio wells.

There are concerns that notwithstanding Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) and Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission (FERC) finding and demands made on Rover Pipeline LLC ("Rover," Houston, TX) that Rover is not acting quickly enough to remove the contaminated mud from the vicinity of well fields that service the homes and businesses of Canton and highly populated areas of Stark County.

Canton's water superintendent Tyler Converse updated Canton City Council at last night's regular council meeting on the issue of the potential pollution of Canton's Sugarcreek well field water resource that is the source for water supplied to Canton-based homes and businesses.

In the foregoing video, Converse says that his Canton city enterprise department is continuing to monitor the location of the contaminated mud.

Council members last night were front and center in expressing concerns that Canton government would simply sit back and let Rover dictate the timetable for dealing with the problem.



There was talk that Rover might resist moving on to remediation in appealing an Ohio EPA directive (see entire OEPA finding/remediating directive report at the end of this blog) issued about one week ago.

Converse reassured council that such is not and would not be the case.

Canton has retained a consultant and law firm to assist in dealing with getting a satisfactory solution to the spill induced threat.

Superintendent Converse says that each day that the contaminated drilling mud stays in place is another day that the mud might migrate towards the Canton owned well field.

A resource which council president Allen Schulman says is Canton's most valuable financial/economic asset.

Even more important than Canton's approved investment of $5 million in the $700/$800 million Pro Football Hall of Fame Village Project

Stark County stakeholders who should be paying close attention to remediation efforts include residents of:

• Jackson Township,
• Hills & Dales,
• Lake Township,
• Lawrence Township,
• Massillon,
• North Canton,
• Perry Township,
• Plain Township, and
• Tuscarawas Township,

The SCPR has published two prior blogs on this highly important issue which has the "potential" to threaten the well-being of Cantonians/Stark Countians, to wit:

• Blog of June 22, 2017 featuring a video of Stark County commissioner Richard Regula who lives in the general area in which the contaminated drilling mud is located,
• Blog of July 10, 2017 which has a copy of the OEPA findings of contamination and corollary demand for clean up action to be taken,

As reported in the July 10th blog, the SCPR has learned that initially Rover officials told the OEPA that the company was only going to deal with FERC on the matter as it deemed the OEPA not to have jurisdiction over its operations.

However, as can be seen in the FERC document below, the federal agency is having none of it in terms of playing a federal agency off against a state agency and has in the document fully embraced the Ohio EPA findings and demanded action.

Area media reports indicate that Aqua Ohio is also monitoring the situation on a continuing basis and so far is not detecting any problem with its wells water quality.

Recently, the Stark County Water District on its website published a report on Aqua Ohio water quality as of December 31, 2016, to wit:

Here are the two base documents from FERC and the Ohio EPA.

FERC



OHIO EPA