Bill would create water fundState must disclose dangers to wells

The News and Observer

http://www.newsobserver.com/1170/story/462777.html

Bill would create water fundState must disclose dangers to wells

Pat Stith, Staff Writer

If the state has reason to think your well water may be polluted, it's going to have to tell you.
Legislation passed Thursday would create an Emergency Drinking Water Fund to pay for the notification of people whose wells, either at home or work, are within 1,500 feet of known groundwater contamination.

Money from the fund also would be used to test wells and buy water for people who are financially unable to do that for themselves.

The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Pricey Harrison, a freshman Democrat from Greensboro. It now goes to Gov. Mike Easley to be signed into law.
"I know there have been communities that have been devastated by contaminated groundwater, and this is a step toward getting them some relief," Harrison said Thursday.
"She's our hero, there's no question about it," Hope Taylor-Guevara, executive director of the environmental group Clean Water for North Carolina, said of Harrison.

Harrison originally asked for almost $1 million. The legislature approved $300,000, which Taylor-Guevara said is not nearly enough. She said it would take several million dollars, over a period of years, to notify people living near known sources of pollution and to pay for tests or for bottled water.

Jerry Price and his wife, Mary, of Wake County, were the genesis of the Emergency Drinking Water Fund.

The Prices and their neighbors, who live off Poole Road near the Neuse River, drank from polluted wells without knowing it.

When the Prices discovered that the state and county governments had known of nearby groundwater contamination but hadn't told them, they resolved to do something.
They helped secure a new source of water for their neighborhood and improvements in the Wake County well-inspection program. They also spoke for the legislation last year.
Mary Price was delighted Thursday when she was told of Harrison's success. "Oh, that is great," she said. "That's a start."