In early 1997, the region's largest underground water supply, the Barnes Aquifer, was contaminated by an industrial solvent, trichloroethylene. In a portion of West Holyoke and Southampton, more than a dozen households with private wells had to use bottled water. He said that monitoring of the plume of contamination over the last two years has shown it is not spreading to the rest of the aquifer and has not increased in concentration. New projects have to use more environmentally sound practices. The contamination was eventually traced to a septic tank at a private home, where it was estimated five to 10 gallons of the solvent dumped in the tank had caused all the trouble.
Contamination can enter drinking water elsewhere than at the source.
Sometimes pipes can pollute water. Lead pipes in older homes can add unhealthy levels of lead to water, a pollutant that can affect the development of children. That has been a problem over the years in Springfield and other older urban areas. At Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee, much of the base had to use bottled water in 1996 when it was found a 2.5-mile long concrete and asbestos water main that fed water to the base was adding unhealthy levels of asbestos to the drinking water. The pipe eventually was repaired.