By Joseph Fitzgerald

BURRILLVILLE — Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) was among the invited guests attending a ceremony Monday to dedicate the Pascoag Utility District's new well.

The well off Reservoir Road went online two weeks ago and is pumping 75 gallons per minute, or 50,000 gallons per day, to Pascoag water customers. This is the first time the district has been delivering its own water since Pascoag’s groundwater supply was tainted by high levels of MTBE nearly seven years ago. Reed worked to secure federal grant money that helped pay for cleanup of the spill and the new well.
The new well is pumping out far less than the old well was providing prior to the MTBE spill in 2001, but it represents 15 to 20 percent of water the district no longer has to purchase from neighboring Harrisville. District officials also see it as the beginning to one day providing even more water to its customers.
The 2001 contamination, the biggest spill in Rhode Island history, crippled the village of Pascoag in August of that year, forcing more than 4,000 Pascoag Utility District water customers to rely on bottled water for months.
The district had three wells at the time, all of which had to be shut down by court order because of the contamination was so embedded in the aquifer.
The suspected source of the MTBE was the former Main Street Mobil gas station in Pascoag, which had three 6,000-gallon underground storage tanks (USTs).
The owners and operators of the gas station, Potter Oil Inc. and Medea LLC, filed voluntary bankruptcy in November 2001 and, as a result, the departments of Health and Department of Environmental Management (DEM) took over all emergency response and cleanup activities.
Since then, the village has been receiving clean water piped in from wells in Harrisville while the DEM continues its remediation efforts.
Methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, came into wide use after the passage of the federal Clean Air Act amendments of 1990.
The laws required refiners to add an oxygenate to gasoline that would make cars emit less pollution — but the EPA has also found that MTBE is a possible cause of cancer in humans. Water-pollution problems created by the compound have prompted states around the country to ban its use in gasoline.
Even though the new Pascoag well is only producing one-fifth of what the old well delivered, it will result in a savings to the district of about $15,000 to $16,000 per quarter, according to Garille.
The new well exploration and construction was largely paid for with a $550,000 USDA grant, and an EPA State and Territorial Assistance (STAG) grant.
In the meantime, the district’s lawsuit against Exxon-Mobil Corporation alleging that the corporation intentionally misled the public about the effects of MTBE is slated to go to trial in August. The district has advanced a tort suit claiming $550 million in damages.
If the district is successful in recouping those damages, it will use some of the money to build a water treatment facility in hopes of bringing the district’s wells back online.