A community meeting will be held at the Club House on Thursday, May 10 from 6-7 for a complete review on the water system and to respond to questions.
Well 3 (on LTE, pump house 2)
Well 3 has been hyper-chlorinated and the preliminary tests are positive. If the completed tests are positive, we will shortly ask the DEP to allow us to connect this well to the system via pump house 2. The well has not been actively used in more than 30 years due to its very modest output at about 27 gallons per minute. (Well 2 produced over 80 gpm and well 1 produces about 35 gpm.) If we receive DEP permission to connect this well to the system, we may have to first update the piping in this pump house since the pipes are old and the check valves may not be as tight as would be appropriate.
Well 2 (on LTE, pump house 2)
This is the well that showed a positive test by Agra for E.coli after the water pressure was turned off for this side of the lake to do a repair. At the same time, the chlorine system was not working in this pump house and this was not reported to Agar by the VSA. A more sophisticated and expensive test for DNA indicated that the bacteria was not E.coli. We are doing further DNA testing to determine the exact nature of the bacteria. Agra’s tests are an industry standard for tests of this type, but more complex testing at a greater expense by a specialized lab provides more specific results. Tests by Agra after subsequent hyper-chlorination of this well indicated no E.coli but moderate coliform. Based on Agra’s advice, we will chlorinate this well again and re-test. It is believed that there is a good chance that the contamination is not from the well itself but from piping issues external to the well that can be corrected. However, any resolution of this question will probably require a period of extended testing for the DEP’s consideration.
Well 4
This will be a new well. It will be drilled on the western edge of the tennis court parking lot. The drilling rig is presently in place and set to drill the well. However, we are involved in a regulatory morass. The DEP adopted new rules and regs within the last year running to more than 140 pages to cover water system issues such as drilling new wells. All the professionals that we are dealing with have had limited exposure to these new procedures and view them as being very complex and burdensome. We have had to hire a specialized engineering firm to prepare the many documents now required. We would hope to submit all the required documents to the DEP within about 2 weeks and then to start drilling. The drilling and related piping should take about a week. However, if the DEP review is more protracted, the drilling company may need to relocate their drilling rig due to the prolonged downtime. This well will be piped into pump house 1 next to the tennis court.