Aquifer study delayed by lack of MLGW contract

Tom Charlier | Memphis Commercial Appeal

Show Caption Hide Caption What is the Memphis Sand aquifer? The Memphis Sand aquifer provides some of the best drinking water in North America, but what is it?

Four months after utility customers began paying higher water rates to fund it, a planned study of a crucial local aquifer has yet to begin because of contractual delays involving the Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division.

MLGW still hasn't approved a contract with the University of Memphis, said Brian Waldron, director of U of M's Center for Applied Earth Science and Engineering Research, which would conduct the study of the Memphis Sand aquifer.

Without a contract, Waldron said, the U of M can't hire graduate-student researchers to investigate threats to the deep, relatively pristine aquifer that supplies drinking water to Memphis and other area municipalities. The study initially attracted highly qualified candidates from all over the world interested in filling the five doctorate and six to 10 master's level slots available in the first year, he said.

"They're starting to go to other schools because we can't offer them a contract because I don't have a contract with MLGW," Waldron said.

Researchers hired for the study would get a monthly stipend, in addition to having their tuition paid for. Study funds also would pay for drilling, sampling, geophysical survey work and educational-outreach efforts.

MLGW has not given a reason for the delay, Waldron said.

In an emailed statement on the contract this week, Gale Jones Carson, director of corporate communications for the utility, said, "MLGW and the University of Memphis are in the process of negotiating the comprehensive scope of work and detailed deliverables for the aquifer breach study contract. We expect that the parties will have a workable draft by the end of next week."

The MLGW contract is needed because the utility is collecting the money that will pay for the study. Under a rate hike approved by the City Council, water customers began paying 1.05 percent more — an average of an additional 18 cents a month per household — on their bills in February.

The increase is supposed to generate $1 million annually to finance a five-year study of breaches in the protective strata of clay overlying the aquifer. The breaches, or windows, in the clay could allow surface contaminants to trickle into the Memphis Sand.

Researchers currently know of or suspect 16 breaches in the clay layer, but others are believed to exist. The threat they pose has been underscored by the recent discovery that a shallow aquifer contaminated with arsenic and other toxins near a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-ash pond in Southwest Memphis is connected to the Memphis Sand.

Reach Tom Charlier at thomas.charlier@commercialappeal.com or 901-529-2572 and on Twitter at @thomasrcharlier.