MANCELONA -- A water main project in Antrim County that's provided safe drinking water for a community confronted by an enormous toxic groundwater plume likely won't fully address the contamination.
In 2007, a $2 million state grant paid for a 25,000-foot extension to an existing public water main in Mancelona to offer safe water for 80 homes and hundreds of vacant lots at Shanty Creek Resort, a spot threatened with water tainted by tricholoethylene, or TCE.
That work is done, but a recent state study shows the plume may yet contaminate drinking water as it migrates.
Ray Karabin and his wife, Marguerite, miss their "sweet water" well, but chose to hook up to the public water main, as did many of their neighbors.
"We don't really have a choice, do we? We have a plume coming through and there's no way to stop it," Karabin said.
The contamination is from an industrial site in Mancelona, where harmful solvents were dumped for about two decades, ending in the mid-1960s. The company is long gone, but the plume stretches more than six miles northwest and more than a mile across, said Janice Adams, a senior geologist with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
Clean drinking water currently is pumped from a series of wells near the Cedar River and supplied to area residents like the Karabins. It's only a matter of years, though, before the plume could cause additional problems, Adams said.
"It's expected to take 10 to 12 years to reach the Cedar River well field," she said.
What's unknown is whether the toxic plume -- one of Michigan's largest -- will move deeper into the ground and contaminate fresh water sources.
"Just because the plume is going to move over the area does not mean it will leak into or be drawn into the drinking water supply," Adams said.
But there's also no guarantee it won't, she said.
"Sooner or later, that plume will likely strike some additional residential water wells," said Dean Branson, a volunteer with ACUTE: Antrim Coalition United Through Ecology. "It won't be a big, fat surprise."
What's good is that clean water is available now, environmental officials continue to study the plume and there's plenty of time to address the problem before the public water supply is at immediate risk, Branson said.
The plume is so large that cleanup isn't financially viable, so state officials will continue to monitor the area's groundwater and study the clay layer between the plume and drinking water sources, Adams said.
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