Water district wants more wells, longer tests for biomass site

KEITH WHITCOMB JR. Posted: 12/09/2010 10:48:07 PM EST

Thursday December 9, 2010

POWNAL -- A local water supply board is asking the developer of a proposed biomass plant at the former Green Mountain Race Track to dig more test wells and extend the duration of a well pump test.

Hearing set

Beaver Wood Energy, LLC, has petitioned the state with permits to build a 29.5 megawatt biomass facility that will also manufacture over 100,000 tons of wood pellets per year. One of them is for a ground water withdrawal permit through the Agency of Natural Resources Water Supply Division. Beaver Wood wishes to use the track’s well as a secondary source for cooling purposes.

A public hearing on the ground water withdrawal permit is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Pownal Elementary School.

The Pownal Fire District #2 Board of Directors has written letters to the Water Supply Division and the Public Service Board asking for the ground water permit to be denied because there is not enough information on the aquifer and Beaver Wood has not been clear enough about its intentions.

The board met Wednesday with Dennis Nealon, of the Water Supply Division, and Meddie Perry, senior hydrologist for Vanasse, Hangen, Brustlin Inc. (VHB), a consulting firm Beaver Wood has hired to conduct the well tests.

Steve Revell, owner of Lincoln Applied Geology, has been hired by the fire district board as an independent consultant. In 1994, Russell’s company conducted a pump test on the track’s well, the results of which Perry has said indicates VHB’s own tests, planned for January, will be adequate in determining how robust the aquifer is.

Revell said it would give the water district’s customers "peace of mind" if the scope of the planned test was expanded. He would like to see two additional test wells dug at the far north and south reached of the track property, and while a 30-day pump test would be good, he thinks a 15-day test would set minds at relative ease, at least in terms of the water supply. Revell said the 1994 data is from a test geared towards determining the spread of contamination and was less of a supply stress test.

Currently VHB plans to pump the well at 500 gallons per minute for seven consecutive days. Perry said the results of Revell’s 1994 test show the level of draw-down leveling off towards the end of the test, which he added likely means a longer period of pumping wouldn’t have a significant impact.

Perry said he would ask Beaver Wood about the additional wells, but indicated he feels the 7-day test will be enough. He said VHB will offer to monitor wells within 3,000 feet of the track’s well along with the water sources for the Fire District and the Evergreen Mobile Home Park, which lie roughly 6,000 feet to the north and south respectively.

The board, and a few members of the public, expressed displeasure at the idea the pump test would not be extended. Perry said one of the issues is cost. Even using automated systems, as Revell suggested, it would require a large amount of man power working around the clock to make sure the test wells are monitored correctly.

Perry said in a later interview he has to determine the cost of digging the extra wells then ask Beaver Wood if they will be willing to dig them. Ultimately, Nealon and the state will determine if the testing is adequate and the results warrant a permit.

Nealon said this is the first permit of its kind in the state, and that the Water Supply Division has become more involved in ground water supplies in the past few years. Because no permit has been drafted, some speculation is involved, Nealon said, but he expects there would be some continuous monitoring of the water supply, in terms of both amount and quality, and there would be environmental "triggers" in place.

Those triggers, he said, would require the plant to use less water or shut down completely if necessary. Nealon said state laws place drinking water at the highest priority.

Board member Ray Bub said some of the wording in the application isn’t clear. According to the application, depending on the results of the new test, Beaver Wood would be allowed to pump from the ground well 58 percent of the days in a year, non-consecutively. Bub said it doesn’t say how many days in between is needed for a period of pumping to count as non-consecutive.

The figures in the application represent worst-case scenarios and are meant to take an entire year into account rather than smaller time frames, Perry said.

The smaller time frames, such as hot dry days, Bub said, are the concern.

Perry said it’s his understanding that if the monitoring wells drop bellow a certain level, set by the Water Supply Division, the plant will have to reduce or halt its pumping, which would address that concern. Bub also said a letter Thomas Emero, a Beaver Wood executive, wrote a letter to the Bennington Banner that contained information inconsistent with the application.

Perry said he hadn’t read the letter prior to the meeting, but it appeared that Emero may have made a typographical error in stating how often the well would be used.

Beaver Wood has said in the past that it anticipates using the well 20 percent of the time, and that the 58 percent allowance is for a worst-case scenario.

In response to other questions about what will be tested, Perry said the amount of water exchanged between the river and the aquifer will be measured.

Board member Alex DeSamsonow asked why the plant intends to use a leach field for discharging 15 percent of the cooling water and not the Waste Water Treatment Facility. Perry said it was looked in to, but the facility’s operators said the pumps were designed to handle such a high volume.

Most of the cooling water will be evaporated, according to Beaver Wood, while the rest will be sent to the leach field where it will cool and have the minerals filtered out before returning to the river.

Contact Keith Whitcomb at [email protected]