Town officials say retesting of groundwater near a coal ash dump under the Chapel Hill Police Department shows no contamination has entered Bolin Creek.

The coal ash pit lurking beneath the Chapel Hill Police Department headquarters was discovered last year when town officials had the land on Martin Luther King Boulevard appraised for possible sale.

Testing last fall revealed higher than normal levels of levels of arsenic, barium, chromium and lead in groundwater samples from one of two testing wells, but officials with the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources requested retesting because the turbidity levels in the samples could lead to inaccurate results.

Last month, environmental engineers from Falcon Engineering re-sampled groundwater from two wells on the property using a low-flow filter to minimize turbidity.

A newly-released report from Falcon found metal concentrations in all samples to be below state standards for contamination, indicating that groundwater on the site has not been compromised by the coal ash.

A site assessment states there’s also no evidence that contamination leached into Bolin Creek, as some environmental activists had feared.

The town is waiting to hear from NC DENR about what next steps to take next. The state agency could require clean up of the site or place limitations on its future use.

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