ASQUITH, Sask. – The tap to TransGas’s underground storage caverns has been turned off, but Grandora, Sask., residents will keep close tabs on local water over the next three months.
Marj Stevens and Eric Shearer, members of the Grandora and area water committee, each have acreages in the area.
Shearer’s well water is unfit for drinking because of the presence of arsenic contamination. Steven’s artesian well no longer flows.
Neither knew much about the project to use local water to flush out underground salt caverns for future storage of natural gas until they started having problems.
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“They (TransGas) turned the pumps on in January and our artesian well stopped flowing in February,” said Stevens of Grandora.
She said the committee is collecting information from area residents on water quality and well water levels before and since the pumping project. The group also plans a public meeting in January.
The Saskatchewan Watershed Authority authorized TransGas to pump 6.4 million litres of water daily from the Tyner aquifer. Area water tables have dropped as much as 20 metres since January.
Stevens and Shearer feel the company is pumping too much water too fast.
“It’s a total disregard for the use of a good water source,” said Shearer of Vanscoy.
The water group, which represents 180 households, wants water levels to return to within two metres of their pre-January levels before the project can start again.
Dick Graham, executive director of engineering and technology for TransGas, said the company initiated the three-month shutdown to allow time to see the impact of the project. He expects to see water levels rebound within three months by eight to 10 m.
“If water does not come up, then we have to seriously reflect on our pumping rate,” Graham said.
TransGas and the watershed authority will monitor water recovery in the aquifer.
Nolan Shaheen, the authority’s director of ground water management, said TransGas has a valid permit until 2008 and can proceed with its project in March.
“But if things are not as we anticipate, then we do have the authority to amend their approval,” said Shaheen.
Flushing the first two underground caverns is half done and should be finished by summer.
Then TransGas will begin the same procedure on two other caverns, with that expected to take another 18 months.
Graham cited the need for additional natural gas storage in the Saskatoon area as the reason behind the project. Gas is now stored in similar caverns east of Saskatoon near Prud’homme.
He said the Grandora-Vanscoy water table dropped more, likely due to a differing soil composition around the aquifer there.
