2016/01/29-Email to DEQ from Roger Rayle/SRSW - Data problems may mislead decision makers

(1/29/2016 email to Dan Hamel, DEQ from Roger Rayle, chair, SRSW) - an example of data problems misleading decision makers

Subject: Pall/Gelman sampling data

This old problem persists... TW-14's samples taken during its boring at various elevations are still in the DEQ database...

​PLS's 2011 online database, which we got a brief view of in 2011, does show these samples during boring removed (except for two samples ... one 59-60' where the screen eventually was place and curiously one at 14-15' which should have definitely been removed from the sampling database.)

The 21,000 ppb sample during boring misleads anyone looking at TW-14's ppb data that the 21,000 ppb is no longer there...

However, that may not be the case since TW-14 was screened above where the 21,000 ppb was found... and as this next link shows, TW-17 drilled two years later <50 feet to the SE showed 12,000 and 43,000 ppb... that may still be there...

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzSYF0FH8viaMFlvLXpNRmY3Y3c

I don't know how many other instances of sloppy data entry there are like this or how many have been corrected in Pall's "official" database (that we no longer have access to.)

Samples during boring often have water added or infiltration from other levels and should be kept in a separate database and segmented from the samples taken after wells were screened.

The TW-14/TW-17 situation also demonstrates Pall's lack of due diligence in attacking the higher concentrations of dioxane... and that reductions in ppb by token purging in one location doesn't guarantee that high levels of contamination are reduced nearby.

--Roger--

Roger Rayle

chair/co-founder, Scio Residents for Safe Water (www.srsw.org)