The federal government will install wells to test for groundwater contamination in Odenton later this year as part of an effort to determine the scope of chemical pollution stemming from Fort Meade.

Officials from the nearby Army base plan to install three wells later this year, and perhaps an additional four more in 2012, in order to learn how far chemical plumes have traveled. Groundwater contamination from the chemicals trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene are believed to stem from a series of former industrial sites on base. Officials said they know the width and depth of the chemical plume, but not the length. "We don't know the end point of this plume," said Paul Fluck, the restoration manager at Fort Meade. "It's still under investigation. The better we understand the architecture, the better we understand where it's going and the ecological and human impact."

The Army will install three testing wells in the area near Nevada Avenue and the MARC station sometime this fall. It could install as many as four more wells next year, depending on the findings from the first three. Fluck said the contamination from the plume stretches out a least a mile from its source and is flowing in a southeast direction at between 200 and 250 feet each year.

The contamination does not impact the quality of drinking water of those residents hooked up to public service. Those who use wells are already receiving bottled water. Fluck spoke before a meeting of the Greater Odenton Improvement Association (GOIA) on Wednesday night. The group was seeking an update on the full scope of environmental concerns in the area.

In addition to the plume from the Fort Meade industrial sites, the Army is monitoring several other plumes, including a mile-long plume at the southern end of the base, stemming from chemical drums found at the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office, and another plume found near a control site for the former Nike missile program.

Fluck said there is no specific time line for when the Army would seek to remove the chemical pollution from the ground because it is still investigating.

Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, said the government could use a number of difference remediation options, including so-called "pump and treat" processes, chemical oxidation and bio-remediation. He said the Army should be given credit for working with the community on addressing the chemical plume problems. "They are going to have to have a systematic, coordinated approach to the cleanup, and that appears to be what the Army is doing here," Siegel said.