ST CHARLES, Mo. — A letter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requesting the shutdown of a St. Charles well is the latest focal point of ongoing contentions between the city and Ameren Missouri.
The EPA asked St. Charles earlier this week to shut down Well 4 at the Elm Point Wellfield and to "refrain from interfering" with response efforts as Ameren continues remediating contamination at the wellfield.
Six out of seven wells in the city's wellfield have tested positive for contamination since the issue was brought to light last year, and only one well is currently producing water for the city. The EPA ordered Ameren to clean up the contamination, and the logistics of that cleanup work have caused rising tensions between Ameren and the city for months.
The subject of the most recent contention is Well 4. Since the well was reactivated on Aug. 7, it has never pumped water to the treatment plant.
St. Charles Mayor Dan Borgmeyer said to monitor contamination they were pumping water through Well 4 into the sewer system, which is the one closest to the substation.
"So what we're doing is checking it to see how effective (the treatment barrier) is. Well, all of a sudden now we're getting vinyl chloride back in Well 4," Borgmeyer said.
The well's operation was originally planned for 30 days but was later extended past that period to help with calculations as well as test the effectiveness of interim measures installed by Ameren. After low ammonia levels prompted a shutdown of the Elm Point Water Treatment Plant in August, the EPA launched an investigation into the cause, and on two occasions requested the city to turn off the well to assist with sampling of ammonia. The EPA said the city expressed an interest in continuing to leave the well running until mid-October.
But St. Charles announced Wednesday it had shut down Well 4 at the EPA's request due to it testing positive for vinyl chloride, which the city claimed was a result of a barrier constructed by Ameren failing to contain contamination coming from its nearby substation. According to the EPA, the levels present were not enough to cause public health concerns, but could be an indication of contamination being drawn from the substation to Well 4.
The letter from the EPA demanding the closure of the well showed that Ameren itself had reached out to the EPA stating its concern that the city's continued operation of Well 4 could spread contamination, a concern the EPA said it agreed with. That letter told the city to turn off Well 4 as soon as possible and to "refrain from interfering with the response action so as to allow work to proceed with EPA approval."
"They said 'if you interfere, we will name you as a responsible party for the contamination too.' So obviously, they backed us off on that," Borgmeyer said.
This comes after the city filed a motion for a temporary restraining order against Ameren last week, claiming it was "left with no choice" after the company failed to respond to the city's orders to halt the construction of an extraction well. Ameren in return argued that the well was only necessary due to "irresponsible" and "inappropriate" actions of the city regarding Well 4 to hamper contamination cleanup efforts at the Elm Point Wellfield, and Ameren claimed it sent several letters to St. Charles, saying that the city was acting irresponsibly in its operation of Well 4.
In Monday's letter, the EPA said that while it objected to Ameren building the well without its approval, and Ameren has since agreed not to do so, "the EPA also objects to potential interference by the city in a CERCLA (Superfund) response action. Once the EPA approves the work plan, Ameren must proceed with the EPA-approved CERCLA response action without interference."
Ameren said in response to the well's closure that the city's decision "to use this decades-old, obsolete well for the first time in approximately 20 years" was an attempt to undermine remediation activities.
"For weeks, Ameren Missouri had been warning that the city's unprecedented use of the well will reduce the effectiveness of treatment techniques underway on our property, particularly so because the city was using the well without benefit for the residents of St. Charles," Ameren said.
That led to the latest development from Ameren. On Thursday, the company took steps to get a lawsuit filed by the city moved to federal court, releasing the following statement:
"Ameren Missouri took legal action to prevent any further attempt by the City of St. Charles to thwart ongoing cleanup efforts at the Huster substation. In court this afternoon, Ameren Missouri filed to move the City’s latest, misguided lawsuit to federal court. Ameren Missouri's actions come just days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) instructed the City to stop pumping and dumping water from an obsolete well, in what appears to be an effort by the City of St. Charles to undermine Ameren Missouri's work.
"Ameren Missouri is committed to implementing EPA-ordered cleanup to address historical groundwater issues underneath the substation. With the approval of the EPA, and under the agency's oversight, Ameren Missouri has taken multiple measures to aggressively address the residual issues at the Huster substation and in surrounding groundwater.
"Ameren Missouri has operated numerous on-site extraction wells at the substation since 2014. An additional extraction well inside the Huster substation is necessary to counteract the City's most recent irresponsible action to use the obsolete well. Work plans were sent to the EPA for review. Installation and operation of the extraction well will only commence upon EPA's approval.
"The EPA, in its letter to the City earlier this week, noted that Ameren Missouri committed to wait to begin extraction well installation until an approved work plan is in place and told the City, "Once the EPA approves the work plan, Ameren must proceed ... without interference."
"It is important to remember that water remains safe to drink. According to the EPA, "St. Charles' drinking water supply meets the drinking water health standards established by Missouri's Safe Drinking Water Law and the EPA's Safe Drinking Water Act. Water distributed to the public after treatment at the City's water treatment plant has been sampled regularly for VOCs, including vinyl chloride and DCE since 2008 and has never shown any level of contamination."
The city said in its statement that it asked the EPA to "immediately" provide a plan to safely restart the wells and restore the water system to its capacity of 6 million gallons per day.
"What we would like to do is reopen the wells, clean them with this system that we bought for $12 million and go ahead and move along," Borgmeyer said.
Residents just want the fighting to stop.
"Let the scientists do the work, follow the legal process, the CERCLE process, EPA process, and just get it cleaned up," St. Charles Resident Barb Boschert said. "However, the community needs to understand that it does take decades. And that's not willful. It's just, it is what it is."
Thursday night, a small group of St. Charles residents and community advocates formed a Community Advisory Group to help keep each other informed. You can find more information about that group here.