DAYTON — Water quality is on the mind of most in the Dayton area, wondering if it is safe to drink after the train derailment in East Palestine.
News Center 7′s Mike Campbell talked with the City of Dayton and how officials are working to protect the area’s drinking water.
The city had considered installing a new solar power project on the grounds of the former Kittyhawk Golf Course; however, the city will probably move it because one of the city’s water wellfields is there. This is just one of the many ways the city protects the water.
The city’s Environmental Management Department monitors between 200 and 400 companies in the wellfield protection area that are required to provide chemical inventories and are inspected once every two years.
“Helping companies find alternative sources to what they were using, ones that are less harmful to our environment. We also worked with them to find containment centers,” said Keshia Kinnery, Division Manager of Dayton’s Water Supply & Treatment.
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One year after the Sherwin-Williams paint factory fire, the city’s source water protection program began in 1988. The fire burned for six days because the Dayton Fire Department did not put any water on the fire for fear dangerous chemicals could leak into the region’s water supply, the Great Miami Valley buried aquifer, much of it right under the plant’s footprint. The fire burned one and a half million gallons of paint and solvents.
The city realized this would require a regional effort. The city has over 100 production wells pumping water and 500 monitoring wells spread outside city limits. Other cities like Huber Heights, Vandalia, Riverside, and Harrison Township have signed on to the wellfield protection program.
“We have political boundaries on land but water knows no political boundaries,” said Felicia Graham, Environmental Compliance Coordinator, Dayton Water Environmental Management.
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The city has added to its water protections by adding 125 sampling stations around the distribution system, closer to homes, more and higher-tech lab equipment to do daily checks for contaminants, and process control work every two hours to make sure the water that is used is safe.
“This is what we do, protect our resources,” said Graham.
The former Sherwin-Williams paint factory has sat vacant since the fire in 1987 and may end up being the site for the city’s proposed solar power project.
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