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Saranac Lake works to stop iron-rusting bacteria in well

SARANAC LAKE — This village is taking steps to address a suspected iron-rusting bacteria buildup in one of its wells.

On Monday night, the village Board of Trustees authorized the use of the water well system reserve fund, allowing up to $100,000 to cover the costs of addressing the problem.

“It is no threat to human health,” said village Wastewater Treatment Plant chief operator Kevin Pratt. “Iron in the wells is known as a secondary contaminant. … It is not regulated. It’s more of an aesthetic issue.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies only enforce levels for primary contaminants. These include microrganisms such as Giardia lamblia, disinfectants such as bromate that can increase the risk of cancer, and toxic inorganics such as lead.

Iron levels, as a secondary contaminant, are not enforced by the federal government in most circumstances.

The EPA does provide guidelines for secondary contaminant level, seeking to manage wear on infrastructure as well as the look, smell and taste of water. Other secondary contaminants include silver and manganese.

“We’re getting complaints of staining, things like that from it,” Pratt said. “Your primary contaminants are ones that do pose a threat to the public health. This stuff does not. It causes some staining.”

Last summer Pratt reached out to HydroSource Associates, which permitted the well in 2009, about the iron problems in well No. 1. The problem comes and goes. This could be because the bacteria are flushed as the well is pumped.

“They then need time to recolonize before they show up in the village water again,” Pratt said.

Pratt had tested both wells and found an iron level of 0.40 milligrams per liter from a water sample taken from well 1. This is above the secondary standard set by the EPA of .30 mg/l, and according to their charts, a rusty color, metallic taste and reddish or orange staining can be expected as a result.

According to the HydroSource letter, they recorded an iron level of .059 mg/l when they tested the wells in 2009. Well 2 remained low in the sampling.

In December, Pratt sent HydroSource a microscopic image of a water sample from well 1.

“The structures visible in the image resemble textbook illustrations of filamentous iron-fixing bacteria, which consist of masses of very thin, branching fibers,” the HydroSource letter states.

These bacteria live by oxidizing ferrous iron to produce ferric iron, using the energy produced by that reaction to survive.

This ferric iron is “largely insoluble in the range of PH and Eh conditions found in aquifers and wells,” so the result is a slow buildup of ferric iron sludge. Given enough time, these gelatinous filament masses can build up on the well screen and block flow. Pratt confirmed this.

“It eventually will affect the ability of the well,” Pratt said. “It will clog it up, and the production of the well will go down.”

So what’s to be done? First, testing to make sure that what the village is dealing with is actually iron and iron bacteria.

HydroSource is recommending the village pump the well to waste for 24 hours and, following that, to sample the well at one hour, eight hours and 24 hours for ferrous and ferric iron — then ship the samples out to a lab and confirm what the village is dealing with.

“A rough timeline would be we’re hoping to do our 24 test and pumping next week,” Pratt said. “It takes a couple weeks to get results.”

The next step is chlorination.

“Basically, they’ll inject chlorine through the whole profile of the well, let it set for 24 hours,” Pratt said. “Then I’ll pump it again to get all that chlorine and everything out of the water. Then we’ll retest to see how effective it actually was in killing the iron bacteria. Once they determine that it was effective in killing it, then we move to the next step which is redevelopment, which is cleaning the whole well.”

The pump in the well is about 10 years old — on track for a process called redevelopment, which is necessary every six or seven years, Pratt said. This involves disassembling the well pump, cleaning it and super-chlorinating the well.

“Once we get results, then we’ve got to get who built the well and schedule them to do it,” Pratt said. “It could be two, three months.”

The cause of the iron is up for speculation, Pratt said, mentioning that it could be an effect of beaver dams. In their letter, HydroSource suggested 2011 riverbed erosion, or a recent drought lowering the water level in the wetlands bordering the river.

“We’re taking it in steps.” Pratt said. “So we don’t spend $50,000 without knowing if it’s going to work or not.”

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