Morgan Hill
– The company responsible for polluting South County’s
groundwater with a cancer-causing chemical filed an appeal that
could ultimately relieve the firm from its responsibility to
provide bottled water for residents with contaminated wells and to
clean up the polluted soil.
Morgan Hill – The company responsible for polluting South County’s groundwater with a cancer-causing chemical filed an appeal that could ultimately relieve the firm from its responsibility to provide bottled water for residents with contaminated wells and to clean up the polluted soil.
A decision on the appeal will likely not be made for more than a year.
David Athey, the state regional water quality control board’s project manager for the South Valley contamination, said the Olin appeal is in response to a cleanup and abatement order (CAO) the regional board imposed in July. Olin was to provide bottled water for residents on wells whose water tested at 4 parts per billion or more.
The state set 6 ppb as a health goal in March, and Olin has said it thought 4 ppb too stringent a standard.
In the meantime, Olin officials have asked the state water board – the regional board’s parent agency – for a stay on the cleanup order until the appeal is decided. This could halt any bottled water distribution but Athey said he was promised – verbally, but not in writing – that that would not happen.
“Rick McClure (of Olin) told me they intend to comply with the order until the appeal is decided,” Athey said.
On the good news side, Athey reported on an advance in identifying where a sample of perchlorate comes from.
“Some scientists are using a strontium nitrate isotope to “fingerprint” perchlorate in groundwater,” Athey told the Perchlorate Community Advisory Group and several members of the public at a meeting last week.
Such fingerprinting could be helpful locally, he said after the meeting, because Olin Corp., the source of the chemical south of Tennant Avenue, could also be charged with responsibility for perchlorate in wells north of Tennant. The City of Morgan Hill has had to close several wells north of the former Olin Corp./Standard Fusee plant at Tennant and Railroad avenues, because of detectable levels of perchlorate.
Olin does not take responsibility for the chemical found north of its site, claiming the underground water table flows south.
“It’s possible that water, at one time, flowed north,” Athey said.
City Public Works Director Jim Ashcraft said Monday that isotope tracking is good news but the city is still a bit unhappy with the regional board.
“We continue to be greatly unhappy that the regional board hasn’t made (Olin) do any type of sampling to show perchlorate’s presence (in wells north of Tennant),” Ashcraft said.
The city has not performed the tests either.
“Sampling gets very expensive quickly because to do it right, you have to drill monitoring wells,” he said.
Athey was reporting on a recent seminar of groundwater experts, the second in two years, where perchlorate was the focus.
“We’ve gained 1,000 percent (knowledge and understanding) over last year,” Athey said.
Other positive news was that certification for several small wellhead and in-house water treatment systems to remove perchlorate from drinking water is on the horizon, with more details promised soon.
The advisory group was formed to communicate with South Valley residents what has been discovered and what has been done about the groundwater contamination by 40 years of safety flare manufacturing. Led by San Martin resident and volunteer, Sylvia Hamilton, it also includes representatives from valley water, the regional board, local farmers and water experts.
Athey said Olin’s appeal document should be posted
on the regional board’s
Web site soon: www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb3/
