State to test drinking water

State regulators will test drinking water in rural Barnwell County to see if a 36-year-old nuclear waste dump has polluted private wells.

Recently opened state records show tritium pollution beneath the landfill exceeds safe drinking water standards established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The contamination, which flows off the landfill to a creek, also rivals pollution on parts of the nearby Savannah River Site, a nuclear weapons complex with a history of groundwater pollution, The State newspaper reported Sunday.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control will start testing this week in a small community just south of the landfill, agency waste regulator Richard Haynes said Monday. The agency will test other wells in the general area over the next few weeks, Haynes said.

“Right now, the first step is to look in that southern area,’’ Haynes said. “Then we’ll evaluate how far out we go’’ for other tests.

DHEC and landfill operator Chem-Nuclear believe drinking water is safe, saying the direction of groundwater from the site is to the southwest, rather than the south.
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