Plans to drill a well in Fair Oaks to monitor a plume of contaminated groundwater migrating from Aerojet's Rancho Cordova rocket-engine facility have stalled over residents' objections.
"We won't be drilling in seven days," Aerojet's Timothy Murphy told the sometimes angry and loud crowd who attended a community meeting Wednesday night.
The meeting was hosted by the Fair Oaks Water District and Aerojet to inform area residents of the planned well at Park Avenue and Winding Way, a rural, residential area.
To serve as a monitoring well, the drilling site needs to be at a leading edge of the plume that has migrated under the American River and is advancing on Fair Oaks and Carmichael 250 feet underground.
The well is planned as part of Aerojet's $1.2 billion Superfund site cleanup of the rocket fuel contamination from its Rancho Cordova site.
If the monitoring well later is installed and confirms the edge of the plume, another well will be drilled next to it to extract the contaminated water and pipe it back underground to an Aerojet water treatment facility in Rancho Cordova.
County, state and federal regulators, who attended the meeting, have said the plume is about 2 miles wide and traveling, on average, about 500 feet a year.
The plume also appears headed toward a drinking well about a mile away. The Fair Oaks Water District drilled the well several years ago for water storage.
Aerojet postponed its plans for the monitoring well, which would have been located in a road right of way on county property, after residents objected to it being drilled in their neighborhood.
"We will explore options. We will evaluate the sites," Murphy said of at least two nearby locations suggested by the residents.
Murphy is the director of public affairs for GenCorp Inc., the parent company of Aerojet.
No timetable was set, and Murphy said there would be another community meeting on the issue.
Call The Bee's Ramon Coronado, (916) 321-1013.
