
While some residents of the village of Manotick, Ontario may have noticed problems with their well water before the Ontario Ministry of the Environment became aware of the problem, it is doubtful that many were aware of the nature of the problem: a leaking concrete holding tank at a dry cleaners on the main street. When authorities became aware of the problem sampling was quickly undertaken and tetrachloroethylene was detected in a number of water wells within the village core. The Ministry contracted Intera to undertake a detailed hydrogeological assessment of the issue, while simultaneously arranging for a rapid resolution to the problem: piped municipal water from the City of Ottawa. In a phased approach, Intera drilled and instrumented multiple boreholes within the overburden and bedrock, and identified a detailed hydrostratigraphy within the dolostone and sandstone rock formations. Monitoring of PCE concentrations within the many multi-level monitoring wells provided information on the transport pathways and fate of the contaminants, and a three-dimensional groundwater flow and contaminant transport model was developed to assist in predicting the long-term effect of the contaminant source on adjacent unserviced parts of the village.