1995 Gelman Database

Initially, Gelman Sciences only shared its sampling data with state in paper form. This made it very difficult to do any data analysis.

Then during the brief 1995-1996 period when Kim Davis was in charge of the cleanup, SRSW co-founder Roger Rayle managed to get Gelman to share (p.2) its first electronic database in 1995. This database supposedly included all Gelman dioxane sampling to date. It also included some of the state's sampling done by the MDPH. Recently, SRSW has found evidence that the 1995 database left off some of Gelman's sampling of its own supply wells.

That pattern continued after Pall bought Gelman and created another supposedly comprehensive database. Early on, SRSW pointed out that that new database left off sampling data from the 1995 database on MW-30d -- Pall's only monitoring well east of Wagner Road deep enough to be in the deep unit E aquifer. The 1995 database showed MW-30d's dioxane levels had risen to 9 ppb by 1993, 3 times the 3 ppb cleanup standard in place then. Yet the sampling of that well was halted ... until 2000 after the deep unit E was proved to be contaminated around the site and around the time the City's Northwest Supply Well was found to be contaminated and was shut down. Ignoring that well for 7-8 years allowed that deeper contamination to spread undetected.

Turns out there are other significant readings in the 1995 database not included in the current Pall or DEQ electronic databases. Here's a Google Earth mashup of the 1995 database wells/locations involved... that can be download and opened in Google Earth to produce images like these: