City officials are frustrated with the slow pace of an
investigation into the cause of Morgan Hill’s northeast perchlorate
plume
Morgan Hill – Another meeting, another cajoling letter, another set of data, and still no satisfaction for Morgan Hill on the northeast perchlorate plume.
Despite evidence that Morgan Hill officials are sure finger the Olin Corp. as the polluter of the city’s groundwater, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board continues to resist calls to hold the company responsible.
The board ordered Olin to clean up the 10-mile southern plume through San Martin and east of Gilroy a year ago. But in a recent letter with a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” tone, water board executive officer Roger Briggs told Morgan Hill City Manager Ed Tewes that it will be another six months before the board revisits the contamination north of Olin’s former Railroad Avenue road-flare factory.
“We are not reluctant to determine if Olin is or is not responsible, but that decision must be based on substantive technical evidence,” Briggs wrote. “Unfortunately, sufficient technical data review is not yet available.”
The water board has ordered Olin to collect substantial amounts of information in the northeast flow that travels from the factory site to the city’s Nordstrom supply well near E. Dunne Avenue. David Athey, who oversees the perchlorate cleanup for the water board, said that, in many ways, the investigation of the northeast flow is well ahead of the southern plume.
“In terms of the number of (monitoring) wells in the ground and an investigation, it’s farther along,” Athey said. “In terms of sentry wells to protect the supply wells in Gilroy, it looks as though they’ve been shooting in the dark. We’ve devoted a lot of time to the northeast flow, and we need to continue to devote time to the main part of the plume.”
Tewes doesn’t dispute that there has been more scientific study of the northeast flow, but believes only a cleanup order constitutes real progress.
“We are at a much earlier stage because the responsible party has not been declared the discharger,” he said. “From a regulatory perspective, we are at ground zero.”
Olin has consistently maintained that the northeast flow is from another source, perhaps the former United Technologies Corp. plant in Coyote. But last fall, the company admitted that new data revealed the possibility that perchlorate had traveled north of the site that Olin operated from 1955 to 1987.
Tewes said that data, which showed northerly migration of perchlorate at previously unstudied depths, disproves Olin’s contention that it is not responsible for Morgan Hill’s perchlorate plume. A finding that Olin polluted Morgan Hill’s water likely wouldn’t have much effect on the groundwater because it tests at levels wells below the state’s public health goal for perchlorate of 6 parts per billion. But Tewes wants Olin to pay the costs of treating the water, a burden that now falls to the city’s rate payers.
“Olin’s own work debunks the conclusions” that it is not responsible, Tewes said. “I’m dismayed that it may take another six months to reach this conclusion. I understand the challenges, but this is a very critical issue for the 36,000 people of Morgan Hill.”
Briggs said there’s a “very distinct difference between the weight of evidence” that requires the collection of significant amounts of additional data. As Olin continues its testing, the Santa Clara Valley Water District will conduct so-called forensic tests to determine if the perchlorate levels in the groundwater basin changed after the factory opened and if that perchlorate can be pinned to Olin.
“There’s no way to dispute the southern plume,” Briggs said. “If there wasn’t any doubt about perchlorate to the north, we wouldn’t be doing all of this extra testing. There’s a very different set of facts and the data is spotty.”
Water board staff ordered Olin to clean the southern plume last February, giving the company until June 30, 2006 to complete a cleanup strategy. Briggs said that an order on the northeast flow will likely be made by water board directors at a public hearing.
