Residents blast panel's inaction

A number of residents of the Brabrook Road neighborhood in Acton vented their frustration at a Planning Board meeting last week when the board took no action against a local builder. The residents suspect the builder used blasting materials with the chemical perchlorate and caused perchlorate contamination in two wells.

''I am totally disappointed," Brabrook Road resident Karu Ratnam told the board Tuesday. ''It seems like [you] just want to pass it on to someone else."

The residents are seeking reimbursement for well-testing expenses from the developer of Ellsworth Village, a housing complex for seniors being built at the end of Brabrook Road. Blasting was done last fall to put a water main beneath Brabrook Road to connect Ellsworth Village to the public water supply.

Contractors who oversaw the blasting told the Planning Board that no material containing perchlorate was used.

James Fenton, a member of Ellsworth Village LLC, the project developer, said at the meeting that he took extra precautions to ensure that blasting agents containing perchlorate were not used on the project. He said the blasting was delayed for a week to ensure that the right kind of materials was employed.

The actual blasting was done by subcontractor Saunders Drilling and Blasting. Dave Saunders also said at the meeting that blasting materials he used were free of perchlorate.

But neighborhood residents said that blasting agents containing perchlorate are the logical, although unproven, source of the perchlorate levels found last month in two private wells adjacent to the blasting. The levels are above the standards drafted by the state for the chemical, which has been found to interfere with thyroid function. Testing on one of the wells before the blasting showed no perchlorate in the water.

When reached by telephone Wednesday, Fenton said Ellsworth Village has nothing to do with the water situation and that he was at the meeting representing the construction company that did the work on Brabrook Road.

He blamed local environmental activist Carol Holley for stirring up neighbors on the perchlorate issue.

On Thursday, two days after the board session, Henry Chapin, the owner of the well with the highest perchlorate reading, said that he and Ratnam had just met with Fenton, and the developer offered to do excavation work to connect their homes to town water at cost. That could save Chapin an estimated several thousand dollars on a total hookup bill that he said could approach $9,000. Fenton could not be reached to comment on the reported offer.

Planning Board chairman Gregory Niemyski said at the Tuesday meeting he doesn't know where the contamination came from. ''I don't know whether it is the result of the blasting or the rock change or of stuff leaking into your wells," he told residents.

When granting permission to build Ellsworth Village, the Planning Board required that, if perchlorate compounds were to be used in the blasting process, the developer would pay for the testing. Niemyski said that Fenton met the board's requirements by using blasting agents he didn't think contained contaminants.

At the meeting, the board did not require Fenton to reimburse the residents for well-testing they'd paid for. The board hasn't closed the matter, but probably doesn't have the authority to do much, Town Planner Roland Bartl said after the meeting. He said that there are as yet no state or federal standards on acceptable limits of perchlorate in drinking water and that, even if there were, enforcing them may not be within the Planning Board's purview.

''There was nothing more the Planning Board could do at the time or still could do now," he said. The Planning Board members think ''it is between the residents and the developer, or the blaster, or the suppliers of the blasting materials."

Bruce Reichlen, an associate member of the board, said, ''We can't force anyone to meet a regulation that doesn't exist."

Last month, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to issue proposed drinking water standards for perchlorate, which has been found in 10 locations across the state, including Boxborough and Westford.

The proposed standard of 2 parts per billion ''will be protective of public health, especially for sensitive populations, such as pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants, and individuals with low levels of thyroid hormones," according to a state Department of Environmental Protection document.

The document also says that perchlorate has been found to interfere with thyroid function, which could lead to impaired human development and metabolism. No federal standards regulating perchlorate levels in drinking water currently exist.

Nine homeowners paid $127.50 each to have their wells tested last September before the blasting began in October, according to Holley, who lives on Pope Road near Brabrook Road and is on the board of Acton Citizens for Environmental Safety. She said that no detectable levels of perchlorate were found in any of the wells.

When eight wells were retested in early March, Ratnam's showed a level of 1.38 parts per billion, according to information provided by Ratnam to the Planning Board. In a third round of testing later that month, Ratnam's well had 2.43 parts per billion, above the state's proposed standard.

Chapin, Ratnam's next-door neighbor, had not previously had his well tested, but joined in the third round. The test results for his well showed 5.36 parts per billion, according to information he provided to the Planning Board. Chapin said at the meeting that he and Ratnam live closest to the blasting site. No other wells have shown detectable levels of perchlorate.

Material safety data sheets with information about the blast materials were filed with the Fire Department and the Board of Health prior to blasting. An e-mail from Health Director Doug Halley to the town manager said that, based on those sheets, ''The Health Department has confirmed that perchlorate is not a listed ingredient for the explosives, the blasting caps or the detonators."

But a document on the state Department of Environmental Protection website mentions that some explosive products can contain small amounts of perchlorate, even if perchlorate is not listed as one of the ingredients.

Another neighbor, Debby Adams, said she plans to go before the Board of Selectmen again and assert that, since the blasting was done in a public road, the town has some responsibility.

Some residents previously talked with the selectmen and were told to go to the Planning Board. Although perchlorate has not been found in her well, Adams worries it could show up later.

''I have had thyroid surgery and my health is compromised," she said.

Residents asked at the meeting whether any more blasting would be required on the project.

''I don't know," Fenton responded.

''If you do have to blast again," Niemyski, the Planning Board chairman, said, ''you'd better think about it twice."

Sally Heaney can be reached at heaney@globe.com.