Person County Health Director Janet Clayton said in a press release via e-mail to The Courier-Times late Friday afternoon that for the past month the department has been “investigating private drinking water wells which are contaminated with chlorinated solvents and gasoline around the Halifax Road and Virgilina Road intersection.”

The health department, she said, is leading the investigation and has taken water samples and distributed health risk information in the neighborhood.

“This a joint investigation with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the North Carolina Underground Storage Tank Division and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Division,” Clayton said.

The well sampling is continuing, Clayton said, adding that the State Laboratory of Public Health is doing analysis of the samples.

“As sample results become available, the health department will notify the individual property owners,” Clayton said. “The multi-agency team is continuing to investigate to determine the source of the pollutants and to find a long term solution that protects the public health.”

The health department release was shy on details, but Person County Manager Steve Carpenter told The Courier-Times Friday that six households in the area have been vacated by the occupants owing to the seriousness of the well contamination at those residences where special filtration systems were being installed. Other residents in the neighborhood whose wells are more moderately contaminated have been advised by officials not to bathe or cook with their well water.

While the source of contamination has yet to be determined, Carpenter said underground gasoline storage tanks at the sites of former service stations in the area are suspect. And he indicated that a former machine shop in the area could be the possible source of the chlorinated solvents detected in the ground water, but there has been no official determination to that effect to date.

Carpenter said there is some speculation that this year’s prolonged drought could in some way be partly responsible for the contamination levels showing up now, but that is not known for certain.

The county manager indicated that officials could be closer to pinpointing the origin of the contamination by next week as analyses of the water samples become available.