Montgomery Well To Be Discussed

IN BRIEF

Montgomery well to be discussed

Residents near the city of Ann Arbor’s Montgomery well will share their concerns with city staff and council members about dioxane contamination at a 7 pm meeting Wednesday at Slauson Middle School, 1019 W Washington St. The meeting will be in the media center.

According to the city, a trace level of 1,4 dioxane was discovered in the well, at the corner of Bemidji Drive and Montgomery Avenue on the west side, during a routine test in 2001. Although the levels were below state-required cleanup levels, the city stopped using it. It had a water source during the winter and provided less than 5 percent of the city’s total water.

Environmental officials suspect the dioxane came from the Gellman Sciences Co., now Pall Life Sciences, in Scio Township. Gellman stored wastewater containing dioxane in unlined lagoons and sprayed it over lawns at its Wagner Road facility until the mid-1980s.

The chemical, used to make medical filters, entered the underground water supply and has spread to the west side near downtown. Dioxane is a presumed carcinogen.