World Water Day 2022: The Value of Groundwater

Today is World Water Day! Every March, the United Nations holds the World Water Day campaign to raise awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to clean water. This year the focus is on groundwater, an invisible resource with a serious impact.

The critical nature of contaminated groundwater and its effect on local communities is something that MWH is acutely aware of and has been directly involved with groundwater cleanup in past projects, a notable one being the Price Landfill project.

In the early 1970s, over 9 million gallons of chemical waste were dumped in the abandoned, 26-acre Price Landfill. Volatile organic compounds contaminated groundwater and threatened the water supply for Atlantic City, NJ, and surrounding communities. Once labeled by the EPA as “the most serious environmental problem in the United States”, this site made the Superfund list in 1983. MWH led the charge in the clean-up of the landfill and construction of a 300-gpm groundwater treatment plant. After its completion in 2014, the treatment system put groundwater migration and human exposure under control, protecting the health of residents in the affected community.