Potential source of contamination means a facility, site, practice, or activity that possesses the ability to contaminate groundwater. As a part of your communities wellhead protection plan you are required to make an inventory of potential contaminant sources in your community as well as notify them that they are potential source of contamination and that they are in a wellhead protection area. Communicating with potential sources of contamination can help to prevent contamination in your community.
- The Indiana Wellhead Protection Guidance Document [PDF] provides information on addressing potential sources of contamination.
Preventing Contamination
A well informed potential source of contamination can be an ally in preventing spills and environmental contamination within your wellhead protection area. Some ways to inform and engage potential sources of contamination include but are not limited to:
- Sending notification letters as a part of the Phase II plan.
- Your community may decide to send out reminders to potential sources of contamination periodically, since owners/staff may have changed since the original letter was sent.
- Inviting them to join your local planning team.
- Passing a local ordinance to determine what practices are allowed in your wellhead protection area and what is expected of potential sources of contamination.
- Another resource is the IDEM Compliance and Technical Assistance Program
Identifying Potential Sources of Contamination
Building a Potential Sources of Contamination inventory is simply listing out in a table and mapping sites in your WHPA that have the potential to contaminate the source water for your community or have already been found to have contaminated water within your WHPA.
- Local Planning Team Review: local planning team members might have historical knowledge of the wellhead protection area or be aware of changes and/or activity that has occurred in the wellhead protection area.
- Windshield Survey: looking around your community in person can help identify sites that have not been identified elsewhere or notice practices that might not show up through other methods.
- Outside Records/Database: IDEM Virtual File Cabinet (VFC), local records, federal records (ex: U.S. EPA Facility Registry Service).
- Indiana Map: View the map and use the Layer Gallery to maximize the search benefits.
- U.S. EPA: Drinking Water Mapping Application to Protect Source Waters (DWMAPS).
- Online search engines and maps (ex: Google Maps)
OLQ Remediation Sites
The IDEM Environmental Cleanups site provides additional information about remediation: