By Jerry Needham
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2007 San Antonio Express-News
All Rights Reserved
HELOTES, Texas — Fire crews started knocking out chunks from the mountain of burning mulch near Helotes on Monday, expressing hope that the smoke will be gone in three weeks with no more contamination of the Edwards Aquifer.
“They’re making some real progress,” said Terry Clawson, spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The state agency took control of the pile five weeks ago, hiring a contractor to put out a blaze that’s been smoldering since Christmas.
“You can really see where they bit off a huge chunk of it,” Clawson said late in the afternoon.
As a water cannon sprayed a couple of long-armed track hoes and hot spots around them with water, the machines moved burning matter into a nearby clay-lined pit, where it could be doused without concern that the sooty water would migrate into the region’s water supply.
It had been almost three weeks since crews had put water on the fire. Two days of icy weather were followed by sooty water showing up in two wells a half-mile away, prompting officials to plot a new firefighting strategy. Then, last Tuesday, the San Antonio Water System cut off the fire crews’ water supply amid concerns about the potential for more contamination of the aquifer, which provides water for 1.7 million people.
But SAWS turned the water on Monday after the state agreed to extensive testing of surrounding wells and a go-slow approach that involved a cap on the amount of water that would be used on the pile itself each day and some test periods.
The first test ended Monday when the clay-lined quenching pit constructed adjacent to the pile held an estimated 525,000 gallons of water for 24 hours without leaking, Clawson said.
In the agreement with SAWS, crews will be allowed for three days to use up to 300,000 gallons of water a day to cool the equipment and operators working on the pile before a halt is called for two days to see if the water used to that point results in contaminated wells in the area. If not, firefighting can resume with up to 300,000 gallons a day.
“We’re, of course, extremely happy that the clay-lined pit has held water so far,” said SAWS spokeswoman Anne Hayden. “We hope that it will continue to do so throughout the testing period and then throughout the firefighting period. We’ll be working with TCEQ to monitor wells in the area to ensure that no water from the quenching pit or the pile itself is contaminating the Edwards.”
If any contamination is found, the state agency has agreed to stop and find another way to extinguish the blaze. SAWS officials have suggested using either a huge crane or a dragline, either of which could pull material into the quench pit without putting water on the pile.
Clawson said 300,000 gallons had been used by 4 p.m. Monday but that a significant amount of that had gone into the pit and an adjoining sluice.
He said the fire crews are trying to limit the amount of the pile they’re opening up at one time to limit the amount of smoke generated.
“I understand the air quality readings this morning were not all that bad,” Clawson said. “It looks bad, but of course, a lot of it is steam.”