Ranchos seeks extension to meet arsenic standards

One of the wells in the Ranchos complies with the old arsenic standard but not with the revised one. The Gardnerville Ranchos General Improvement District has applied for an extension so the well can be called back into service.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lowered the maximum contaminate level for arsenic, effective the beginning of this year. The revised arsenic standard is 10 parts per billion. The old standard of 50 parts per billion had been in place for more than 60 years.

While the arsenic levels of the rest of the wells in the Ranchos are between 4 and 9 parts per billion, the current arsenic level for Well 5 is 25 parts per billion.

District Manager Bob Spellberg said Well 5 has been back in service since the first week in August.

"We had to put Well 5 back in to pick up the slack," said Spellberg. "It's going again because Sierra Pacific Power couldn't give us enough power and because of summer demand.

"We applied for an extension and the state requires us to notify residents."

The Ranchos district is one of the 36 water districts applying for extensions and recommended for approval by the State Environmental Commission at a meeting in Reno on Sept. 6.

Water systems in Nevada with arsenic concentrations greater than 10 parts per billion but below 50 parts per billion could have applied for an exemption from the environmental commission.

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection received exemption applications from 62 water systems and is recommending the environmental commission approve 36 of those requests. The remaining 26 applications were not complete and not recommended for approval at this time.

An exemption is allowed under both the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and Nevada law that can be used to grant water systems additional time to acquire financial and technical assistance to meet new or revised federal drinking water standards such as the newly adopted arsenic standard.

If the exemptions are approved by the State Environmental Commission, then the respective water systems would be granted an additional three years, until Jan. 23, 2009, to comply with the new arsenic standard.

Ground water is the only source of drinking water for the Ranchos. The district operates six wells with one held in reserve and has more than 40 miles of pipeline. Well 5 is on Kimmerling Road near the Bing Materials pit.

"It would take $1.6 million to build a treatment facility just for Well 5 plus more money to maintain it every year," said Spellberg. "In our case, new development could pay for it or we'd have to look for other sources."

According to Spellberg, the district knows the best way to treat arsenic is to not treat it all but to replace the source.

"We have to ID a method of financing within the next three years or have something built," he said. "If not, we'd abandon the well."

The water districts' exemption requests are presented to the State Environmental Commission at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 6 at 1100 Valley Road, Reno.