PHOENIX — For more than 25 years, a groundwater aquifer in an industrial area in central Phoenix has been contaminated.
That changed after the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) completed a yearslong cleanup operation this week.
What was wrong with groundwater aquifer in Phoenix?
The area near 16th Street and Camelback Road was contaminated by tetrachloroethene, or PCE, since at least 1999, ADEQ said.
During that year, officials added the location to the registry of the Arizona Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund (WQARF), a state-run program focused on responding to soil and groundwater contamination.
All groundwater aquifers are considered as possible drinking water sources in Arizona.
What contaminated groundwater in central Phoenix?
Tetrachloroethene is a chemical historically used in the dry-cleaning business. It poses risks to environmental and community health, according to ADEQ.
At one point, there was a dry cleaning business in the area. This may have led to the release of the harmful chemicals, according to ADEQ waste programs director Julie Riemenschneider.
“The contamination has been cleaned up,” Riemenschneider told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Thursday. “It all is below Arizona water aquifer water quality standards.”
Contaminates never reached groundwater used in public nor private wells, she added.
How long have state authorities been cleaning this contaminated groundwater?
The clean-up began in 2016. During that year, officials injected naturally occurring microbes and sucrose into the ground at the site.
Those microbes then began breaking down harmful chemicals in the groundwater at the location.
The final injection occurred in 2019. Since then the department reports contaminants have dropped and since 2022 are under acceptable standards.
Part of the reason cleaning up the contaminated groundwater has taken so long is because of testing, monitoring and a slowdown to clear up the last of the contamination, Riemenschneider said.
“At every one of these sites our goal is to clean them up and de-list them,” she said. “I just want the community to know we took proactive steps to protect them and to make sure their water was safe.”
The site has now been removed from the WQARF Registry. That leaves 37 other sites on the registry that are either currently being decontaminated or are slated for future cleanup projects.
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