POWERGRAMS

24 EA specialist solves problem Using a little ingenuity is all in a day's work for Anthony Goggins. Goggins recently pulled out all the stops to ensure the efficacy of a water-testing well at Plant Gorgas near Parrish. The Environmental Affairs (EA) specialist was collecting water-level measurements on a coal combustion residual (CCR) groundwater monitoring well at the Plant Gorgas ash pond. The well is among 350 CCR monitoring wells at the company's closed ash and gypsum ponds. EA employees sample and analyze groundwater around the ponds to ensure compliance with CCR rules. As he moved from well to well, Goggins showed another employee how to properly collect water-level measurements as part of monitoring requirements. Some Gorgas wells are up to 400 feet deep; the well Goggins was testing was 283 feet to the bottom. "It's very deep, and there's a sampling pump that is dedicated and kept within the well," said Goggins, who works for EA's Water Field Services group at the General Services Complex in Calera. "To test the well, you must pick up the cap and hold it aside to insert the water-level probe in the well, since it is too big to fit through the cap." During the process of collecting the measurement, removing the probe and re- inserting the well cap, the ink pen that Goggins used to record the data fell down the 2-inch diameter well. "We've never had this happen before, but we figured we could easily retrieve it by pulling up the dedicated pump and we would find it on top," Goggins said. "You can't see what ENVIRONMENTAL Goggins, who works in Environmental Affairs Water Field Services, holds his 'minnow trap.' Goggins checks sample from groundwater well. PHOTOS BY PHIL FREE

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