Village of Jackson — The source of benzene detected this month in a municipal well on the south side of the village has not been confirmed, Public Works Director Brian Kober said Tuesday.
Water was pumped out of the well for several hours Tuesday in an attempt to remove benzene, Kober said. After flushing the well Tuesday, a water sample was scheduled to be collected later in the day for testing.
A test of a water sample collected May 13 from the well off Jackson Drive, near Hickory Lane Park, detected a small amount of benzene, a component of crude oil and gasoline. The concentration of 1.6 parts per billion of benzene found in the water is below the safe drinking water standard of 5 parts per billion.
The water is safe to consume, but the well has not been used as a source of drinking water since the benzene detection was reported May 23, Kober said. The village operates four other wells, and monthly tests have not detected benzene in those wells.
Although no source of the toxic chemical has been confirmed, the state Department of Natural Resources has asked West Shore Pipe Line Co. of Illinois to test the Jackson Drive well weekly for benzene.
The company has tested each of five village wells monthly since a July gasoline pipeline spill in the Town of Jackson. The May test was the first time benzene was detected in the Jackson Drive well.
A West Shore fuel pipeline ruptured July 17 and spilled an estimated 54,600 gallons of gasoline in a farm pasture in the 1800 block of Western Ave. The gasoline drained into cracks of fractured dolomite bedrock at the surface.
The spill site is two miles southeast of the Jackson Drive well.
On May 3, the DNR announced a plume of gasoline in groundwater was spreading west of the initial cluster of private wells polluted in the spill. Benzene was detected in a water sample collected in April from a private well serving a residence on Sherman Road near Maple Road.
