First published in December 2006

The front-page Villager article on the right side of the page (Dec. 15th, 2006) starts with “It remains uncertain as to whether there is a correlation between the contamination at Bennett’s farm and the sand and salt mixing at the highway facility.”

Hmmmm … doesn’t 1 plus 1 equal 2? Tons of salt have been stored several hundred feet away from the Bennett wells for decades. The next nearest pile of salt is several miles away at the State Highway facility on Route 198. It seems that anyone with a brain would conclude that the salt in the Bennett wells came from the tonnage a few hundred feet, not miles, away.

Let’s have a quick multiple-choice test to see how bright we are.

Question: Where did the salt in the Bennett’s four wells come from?
A. A giant undiscovered salt quarry underneath the Highway Facility or the Bennett Farm.
B. The story is completely made up by troublemakers.
C. The story is completely made up by the Bennett’s so they can cash in with a lawsuit.
D. The salt came from the salt facility miles away on Route 198.
E. The salt came from contamination of the aquifer by tons of salt stored several hundred feet away.
F. The salt was deposited in the Bennett wells by the Salt Fairy.

This is a toughie.  Let’s see what the evidence is.

The Villager failed to point out, or perhaps they did not even think of the obvious question ‘Is the Highway facility well contaminated?

In the November 30th article at the Cafe “The Salt Barn Fiasco” the author speculated without knowing the answer that the Highway Facility well would likely be contaminated because this well was positioned between the salt barn and the Bennett wells. In the December 6th article “The Scandal in Woodstock” this fact was verified. Indeed the Highway Facility well water was found to be comparable to seawater.

Furthermore, the Cafe can’t verify this, but word has it that a giant squid giant-squid.jpg  click to enlarge

was spotted in Taylor Brook in August. More recently a large long neck clam was found sending up 10 foot tall squirt plumes along side the Brook.

 long-neck-clam.jpg  Click to enlarge.

By the way these long neck clams go well with Taylor Brooke wine if steamed properly ;-) .
brooke.jpg  click to enlarge

The only question that remains is how many nearby wells show evidence of contamination? And the answer is not clear (in 2006) except to say that some surrounding wells appear not to be contaminated. The salt will flow in the direction of drainage or the flow of the aquifer. I think the answer is “E” but my IQ is not very high, so I’m not sure.

Even though “correlation is uncertain” according to the Villager, the Town of Woodstock is paying for delivery of drinking water to the Bennett’s, paying consultants to tell them what to do, and planning to foot the bill for a new deep well for the Bennett’s. Is this good use of our tax money if the “correlation is uncertain”? If the salt is coming from a giant salt quarry underneath the Bennett farm (Answer A), then why would a new well solve the problem? If the story is simply made up by troublemakers or the Bennett’s (Answers B or C), then why do anything at all? If the salt came from the State salt facility several miles away (Answer D), then the State should pay for correction of the problem, not the taxpayers of Woodstock. If the salt was deposited in the Bennett’s well by the Salt Fairy (Answer F) then we are all screwed.

It sounds like Woodstock has been spending a lot of money on this problem by purchasing bottled water, environmental testing, employing consultants, and digging a new deep well for the Bennetts.  I, for one, would like to see a full and separate accounting of the expenses over the years caused by this negligence. I would like to see thorough and public accounting of these expenses, especially since the Wholean administration made the decision to ‘re-load’ the salt barn with tons of fresh pure salt rather than put the salt at some new safe location.

The town could have purchased or rented a weather-tight barn, fortified the foundation with an impervious liner and asphalt foundation to prevent leakage of salt into the ground, and then stored the salt safely so that the Bennett property could be naturally remediated. Instead, the Town leadership has decided to perpetuate the problem. So, the current leadership (in 2006) is just as culpable as the past administrations of Very, Wetzel, and Neuman.

The article in the Villager suggests in several places that the salt contamination is due only to mixing of salt and sand in front of the salt barn. If you visit the salt barn, view the size of the salt pile, the dilapidation of the building, and don’t have salt for brains, then it is easy to conclude that the salt is traveling straight down into the ground. If you have any brain, you can figure out that the blue canvas that was hoisted after the first Cafe article on this ‘Fiasco’ does nothing to prevent contamination of the earth. One only has to view the salt at the foot of the barn, puddles in front of the barn, and envision the blue tarp acting as a downward wick for the production of saturated salt water which then seeps into the ground along with the salt underneath the center of the salt pile. Instead, an impenetrable membrane, long used for landfills, and a few feet of special asphalt are what is required, not a blue drape. This could have been done before re-loading the salt barn. I wonder if the blue tarp was the brainchild of Woodstock Town Hall to show us that something has been done?

What we are seeing here is illustrative of the amateurish behavior of our past leadership over the years.

The Highway facility staff and the taxpayers are the unnamed victims. The highway facility well and deteriorating well pump has been used to provide the seawater into facility plumbing not only for washing hands but for diligently washing the 10 taxpayer-funded $100,000 trucks after each use, filling truck radiators, and corroding batteries.