Mount Airy Pursuing New Well

MOUNT AIRY -- The town is continuing to pursue a new well near Gillis Falls in Carroll County, although some residents near the wellheads are worried their water supplies could be hurt.

Town and state officials will meet on Dec. 18 to decide how best to test the most productive of 28 test wells the town recently drilled, Councilman John Woodhull reported Monday evening.

"We need (the state's) input before we are going to say, but it does look promising," said Mayor Frank Johnson.

Mount Airy is seeking new water sources to meet its needs under the terms of a consent agreement it signed with Maryland's Department of the Environment in June.

Nineteen of the 28 wells were productive, Woodhull said. All 28 are on land owned by the Carroll County government.

How productive the new well might be won't be known until MDE establishes the testing regiment, said Michael Haufler, the SAIC consultant who is working with the town on its water search.

The well is two to three miles from town, east of Watersville Road, he said.

Some residents who near live the drilling area came to Monday night's town council meeting to question whether the drilling might harm their water supplies.

"You see these guys going by and drilling holes, and it's scary," said Anne Bennof, who lives on Gillis Falls Road. "Water's everything there."

Although she's never had problems with her wells, her neighbors' well has sometimes gone dry, but it's always filled up again, she said.

Out in the hall, Haufler tried to assuage Bennof's concerns, saying she lives far enough away that Mount Airy's drilling shouldn't harm her well.

Bennof said she wasn't quite convinced, and that she'd feel better once someone else to confirmed that.

Mount Airy will be informing neighbors when it conducts further tests, and if something does happen, residents can seek redress from the state, Haufler said.

Some of the 19 wells that produced water will be converted into test wells, he said, while others will be covered and abandoned.

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