Group gets water issues update

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

‘‘We are concerned about the growth of the county,” Joan Crownover, vice president of the group, said. ‘‘We want to make sure the county uses our resources wisely.”

The citizens group has been known to hold discussions about the cross-county connector from Waldorf to Bryans Road, development in Hughesville or the once-proposed planetarium at the new high school. Even though they could be considered the hot-button topics of the day, they affect only certain groups of the population. But the water issue is one that affects everyone, CBCC members agree.

‘‘Water is the key to life,” Jason Groth, acting water resources manager for Charles County, told those attending the Citizens for a Better Charles County meeting in La Plata last week.

Crownover couldn’t agree more. She said she moved to the mostly rural Ripley area in western Charles County in 1970. The first few years after moving to the area, Crownover and her family obtained their water from a shallow, 39-foot well.

‘‘It was the best, sweetest water you ever tasted,” she said.

After the area became more populated, sewage began to contaminate her well whenever there was flooding or heavy rains. In 1980, Crownover had to dig a 500-foot-deep well, which tapped into the Magothy aquifer.

In 2004, that water source began to dry up. Crownover had to have a well drilling company come out and extend her well another 100 feet.

‘‘The well driller told me that this was the last time they could go down and drop my well,” Crownover said. ‘‘Without water, I couldn’t even sell my property if I wanted to move. My land would be worthless.”

Groth has been dealing with this and other water resource management problems for the past 10 years. One of Groth’s duties is to lend staff support to the Charles County Water Resources Advisory Committee, a group formed in 2006. The committee consists of well drillers, representatives from the utilities department and citizens from rural areas that depend on wells for their water.

One of the recommendations the committee was considering is to implement a graduated water billing system, which would encourage conservation.

‘‘Water would be billed at a rate of $2.50 per thousand gallons for low users,” Groth said, ‘‘but if you were to go over a certain number of gallons, then you would be billed as a high usage user, maybe around $5 a gallon. This way the person that turns off their water when they brush their teeth to save a gallon of water won’t be paying as much as someone that waters their lawn and washes their car every day.”

The La Plata Town Council will begin using a similar graduated billing system for town water and sewer users July 1.

Groth stressed that diversity is the key to water management in Charles County.

‘‘We can’t put all our eggs in one basket,” Groth said.

One suggestion brought up by Groth was to connect with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission at the Prince George’s County line. This could potentially bring another 5 million gallons of water a day from WSSC, he said.

‘‘Prince George’s and Montgomery County get their water supply from above-ground water sources, such as the Potomac River,” Groth said. ‘‘We would be unable to do that here because of our proximity to the bay, which makes the water here more brackish. Currently desalination plants and reverse osmosis are expensive, but it is getting cheaper as the technology improves.”

There is a connection to WSSC on Route 228, but the only time it is used is to flush the pipes occasionally, Groth said.

Chapman State Park wells are positioned to draw water from the Patuxent aquifer, the deepest underground aquifer in the area. There are two production wells in the state-owned Chapman property. Accessing these two wells is a short-term solution that the county’s water resources advisory committee is considering.

Even though 40 to 45 percent of residents in Charles County obtain their water from private wells, Groth stressed that we all share the same resources.

‘‘Public water-users tap into the same water supply” Groth said. ‘‘It just gets delivered in a bigger pipe.”

A water conservation program is being developed, and public education about decreasing water usage should be starting soon, Groth said during the meeting.

Paul Livingston of western Charles County feels strongly about the need for everyone to conserve water.

‘‘We need an immediate moratorium on development,” Livingston said. ‘‘We are set to use more water than the aquifer can provide. At the current rare of water usage, we are set to run out of water by the year 2030.”

One of the first areas projected to run out of water would be the western part of the county due to the bedrock that gets narrower as you get closer to the Potomac. This creates a wedge affect, squeezing the aquifers into smaller areas, and consequently lowering the water supply due to a decrease in volume.

‘‘The solution will be capital intensive,” Livingston said. ‘‘The county has let it go for so long, and largely ignored it.”

‘‘Groundwater is no respecter of artificial political boundaries, like county lines,” Livingston said.