GILROY
– The city has taken its first financial hit – and has braced
itself for a future aesthetic one – from the rocket fuel ingredient
that might taint Gilroy drinking water.
GILROY – The city has taken its first financial hit – and has braced itself for a future aesthetic one – from the rocket fuel ingredient that might taint Gilroy drinking water.
As part of a multi-step plan to stave off impacts from potential perchlorate contamination, City Council approved spending $200,000 Monday to upgrade electrical equipment and buy land around three existing city wells.
The more powerful equipment and the expanded lots will make it possible to install and activate ion exchange treatment tanks standing 16 feet 6 inches tall and capable of keeping Gilroy’s drinking water clean. If perchlorate, which has been seeping into the ground water from a former road flare manufacturing site in Morgan Hill, shows up in the Gilroy water supply, the city could install the bulky filtration system at four wells on the east side of town.
“(The tanks) are just going to be a necessary evil. I’m afraid the sight of them will just have to be endured, because I don’t see any reasonable alternative,” Councilman Bob Dillon said. “Let’s hope we just never have to get to that point.”
Senior Civil Engineer Mike Goodhue acknowledged the treatment tanks would be an eyesore for the east side of town. And the super pumping capacity of Gilroy’s wells ended the city’s hopes of using smaller, more easily camouflaged tanks at the well sites, like the 8-foot tanks used in Morgan Hill.
“We need larger tanks to handle our larger pumping capacity,” Goodhue said. “We’ll try to soften (the visual impact) as much as we can.”
Goodhue said fencing, trees and muted paint colors would be considered when the city moves closer to installation of the treatment system.
Unlike Morgan Hill’s ion exchange tanks, the 16-and-a-half-foot high and 12-foot-wide filtration system will be a permanent eyesore for Gilroy once they are installed.
The Morgan Hill tanks are small enough to move elsewhere once the summer peak season ends. At that time, the resin system inside the tanks can be cleaned out before the tanks get delivered to the wells before the next summer.
Goodhue said because of the enormity of the Gilroy tanks it would be too costly to remove them after the summer.
With a southbound, 10-mile-long perchlorate plume headed toward Gilroy, city engineers wanted immediate Council approval on the land purchase and power upgrade – processes that could take up to six months to accomplish.
For Dillon and other Councilmen, the cost of the city’s perchlorate contingency plan is what hurts most.
The ion exchange equipment will cost roughly $1.5 million to purchase and $90,000 a month ($1.08 million a year) to maintain and operate. In addition, the city will have to spend $600,000 prepping sites – pouring the concrete and laying the pipes – for the filtration system.
City officials haven’t broached the topic in any detail, but this level of new cost means water rate increases could become more likely.
“The cost is terrifying, and I doubt we’ll ever get that back,” Dillon said.
Olin Corp., the company that contaminated the South Valley aquifer, is financially responsible for cleanup costs. However, the company is already spending millions in Morgan Hill and San Martin on site cleanup and water delivery.
“If Olin goes bankrupt, what then?” Dillon said.
City Administrator Jay Baksa said Gilroy will have to foot the bill itself for now. Baksa is working with other South County governments to hash out a reimbursement plan from Olin. And, there is $1.75 million of federal money for “perchlorate planning” in South County which may be used on a portion of Gilroy’s perchlorate projects.
Baksa said Gilroy stands to get paid, but no one at this time can determine when that will be. The lack of immediate answers could spell money trouble for Gilroy.
“It isn’t an issue of money as much as it is an issue of cash flow,” Baksa said. “We may have to front all of this with money from our water fund.”
The city’s perchlorate contingency plan has two other elements.
To meet water demands before and during the installation of the treatment systems, the city will dig two new wells within the next 18 months. It has started a testing program on more than seven potential well sites in Gilroy.
The testing program, which includes water pumping capacity and water quality studies, will cost more than $200,000. Digging new wells would cost roughly $1 million each.
In the event of perchlorate contamination, the city will also implement its most severe water conservation plan. Conservation would be important if, for instance, a high-producing well gets contaminated. The city could still meet water demand as long as demand tapered off somewhat.
The plan involves pumping water at the cheapest times of day, drastic reduction in landscape watering and increasing water rates. When the city implemented this level of conservation in the 1990s, water users in Gilroy cut back 15 percent, Baksa said.
