Sylvia Hamilton, president of the San Martin Neighborhood
Alliance, will chair a new advisory committee being established by
the lead agency on the handling and cleanup of South County’s
perchlorate contamination problem.
The state’s Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board
held an initial meeting Thursday in San Martin with government,
business and community representatives to discuss the idea of a new
community advisory group further and begin establishing
guidelines.
and JON JEISEL
Staff Writers
Members named to advisory committee; spaces still available
SAN MARTIN – Sylvia Hamilton, president of the San Martin Neighborhood Alliance, will chair a new advisory committee being established by the lead agency on the handling and cleanup of South County’s perchlorate contamination problem.
The state’s Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board held an initial meeting Thursday in San Martin with government, business and community representatives to discuss the idea of a new community advisory group further and begin establishing guidelines.
Hamilton was named chair of the new group because of her close ties to the community.
“I said ‘yes’ because if someone from an agency were in charge, there would be less credibility, and our number-one goal is connecting with people in the community,” Hamilton said after the meeting.
San Martin resident Bob Cerruti is vice president.
The water board’s committee is still forming, though a wide variety of agencies were represented at Thursday’s meeting, and Hamilton has issued a call for more public input.
City Manager Ed Tewes and Public Works Director Jim Ashcraft attended for the City of Morgan Hill; Hamilton, Cerruti and Reid Fisher represented San Martin groups and Vivian Varela attended for county health officer, Dr. Martin Fenstersheib.
Peter Forest of the East San Martin Water District and representatives for Assemblyman John Laird and District 1 County Supervisor Don Gage attended. In addition, there were members from the city of Gilroy, the regional board and the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
“It was a very positive, productive meeting,” said Mike DiMarco, spokesman for the SCVWD. “As with any new group, we are trying to figure out how to communicate, how to entice the community to express its concerns and how the committee will present new information to the community.”
The next meeting will be May 8, and the public is invited to attend, to offer to join or to send requests for information, Hamilton said. An agency/communitywide meeting to follow up the one in February has been firmly scheduled for May 3, at Gavilan College. It’s tentatively scheduled for 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The board is looking for community input on all of Olin Corporation’s soil and groundwater cleanup proposals, said Harvey Packard, a senior water resources control board engineer with the agency based in San Luis Obispo. The committee’s life span will probably last “quite a while,” he said.
The committee started working on a mission statement Thursday, DiMarco said.
“The language is not definite yet, but they made it clear that they want to act as liaison between the community and the regional board so the community has a say in the solution,” he said.
Tewes said he was satisfied with the way the meeting went.
“We are pleased that the Regional Board has recognized that this particular cleanup issue has many different aspects and a heightened community attention, unlike some other recent cases,” Tewes said. “It will require technical, regulatory and legal solutions, and we are pleased that there will be community input also.”
A wide cross-section of the South Valley community was invited to the meeting. Some were tapped because they expressed interest in the idea of a committee in the past, and some were recommended by board staff, Packard said.
Based in San Luis Obispo, the nine-member water board is charged with protecting groundwater, surface and marine waters.
The agency has been supervising testing by Olin and the water district since mid-January to see how far the chemical has traveled from its origins at Tennant and Railroad avenues in Morgan Hill. Olin and Standard Fusee Corp. manufactured highway safety flares at that site between 1955 and 1996. Officials say perchlorate was washed from mixing equipment and dumped into a holding pond on the site, and subsequently leached into the aquifer.
Contamination has been found in hundreds of private wells in San Martin and north Gilroy, as well as a monitoring well a quarter-mile from one of Gilroy’s municipal wells. In Morgan Hill, several municipal wells have been closed.
