The City of Goshen strives to take the best care to ensure our drinking water meets all Environmental Protection Agency and Indiana Department of Environmental Management safety requirements.
The City’s Water & Sewer Department consistently tests the water for contaminants or substances that may be harmful for human consumption.
During one of the Department’s routine tests in 2015, low levels of 1,2-dichloroethene (cis-1,2-DCE) were discovered. The Department decided proactively to work with IDEM and the EPA to track the source of this contaminant.
The City’s drinking water is well below the drinking water Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL)* for cis-1,2-DCE, at 3.1 parts per billion (ppb)—and the trace amounts have been decreasing over time, as measured by City staff. The maximum amount allowed for this contaminant by the EPA is 70 ppb—meaning any amount below this level is safe for consumption.
The measurement of a part per billion is a very small amount. Translated into time, a part per billion would be the equivalent of one second out of 32 years.
However, the City has continued to work with IDEM and the EPA to monitor the contaminant and attempt to find its source.
In the summer of 2015, IDEM’s Site Investigation Program conducted a groundwater investigation (Site Inspection) in Goshen. IDEM collected groundwater samples from various locations in the sampling area around Goshen’s North Well Field and at the municipal wells.
The 2015 sampling results confirmed the presence of low levels of cis-1,2-dichloroethene (cis-1,2-DCE) in the City of Goshen’s finished drinking water supplied by the Goshen North Well Field. However, no sources of where the contamination originated could be determined.
After two subsequent groundwater investigations in 2017 and 2018, IDEM’s Site Investigation Program was unable to determine the source of the contaminants. In 2019, IDEM informed the City that they were preparing a Hazard Ranking System (HRS) Documentation Record in order to fund a deep groundwater assessment.
On July 26, 2021 the City received correspondence from IDEM that the EPA is in the very final stages of preparing the HRS document record for publication in the Federal Register.
Under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. EPA, IDEM’s Site Investigation Program will conduct a Supplemental Expanded Site Inspection to obtain deep groundwater samples in an attempt to identify the source(s) of the groundwater contamination discovered at the Goshen North Well Field. Many of the groundwater samples were collected on city property within various right-of-way areas.