A state environmental official Thursday explained why Troup County needs additional wells at the Government Center to monitor groundwater fuel contamination.

“We need to determine how big the problem really is,” said Kelly Adams of the Environmental Protection Division, who met with county commissioners Thursday morning. “Right now there are just a few wells.”

The county has to spend $27,053.50 with Geotechnical & Environmental Consultants in Columbus for the addtiional wells.

“At some point we’ll get a handle on how big the problem is,” said Adams, a geologist in the EPD’s underground storage tank management program. “We have not determined the best way to remove the contamination, but more than likely it will be some vacuum type event” that will cost the county additional money.

The Government Center was built on the site of a former gas station and “we’re sitting on top of where the gas tanks were,” Assistant County Manager Tod Tentler said. “We don’t know if they were removed or not” because records were not required before 1988. “What we’re tryng to do now is identify how wide the contamination is.”

Troup County bought the property from the LaGange Development Authority. Tentler said county finance officer Stewart Mills will research the sale to determine whether the county is indemnified or held harmless because of the contamination.

Tentler said the county won’t have to dig up the Government Center’s foundation, but may have a to use a 24-hour vacuum to “suck all the contaminants out.”

Monitoring wells had been installed on the property in 2002 at the start of Government Center construction. Underground tanks that had been used to fill up sheriff’s vehicles were removed from the site and “everybody thought the whole site was cleared,” Tentler said.

“The EPD was going through its records in 2008 and noticed there were no more reports and the wells were abandoned,” he said.

Adams said the problem “fell through the cracks.”

Groundwater monitoring resumed in Februry 2008 and showed the problem hasn’t been getting worse.

“It sounds like the contamination is not going anywhere,” Tentler said. “It’s just sitting there like an underground pond.”

He said the county may never learn whether the gas tanks were removed from the former gas station, but “all we have to do is dispose of the [gasoline].”

“After we do the next testing, we’ll see where we’re at,” he said. “… We just need to find the parameters and vacuum it out. Then we should be in pretty good shape.”