MORGAN HILL
– It has happened again. The City of Morgan Hill shut down the
third municipal well in two weeks on Wednesday afternoon.
MORGAN HILL – It has happened again. The City of Morgan Hill shut down the third municipal well in two weeks on Wednesday afternoon.
Public Works Director Jim Ashcraft told the City Council Wednesday night that results from the now-monthly tests showed the perchlorate level of the Number Two Dunne Avenue well at 4 parts per billion, the state Department of Health Services’ recommended “action level.”
“That well is only 30 feet from Number One Dunne, and that one is fine,” Ashcraft said later. The wells are located together between Dunne Avenue and Carl’s Jr. fast food restaurant just east of the U.S. 101.
Dunne Two previously tested out as “nondetect,” which means below 4 ppb. Dunne One has tested nondetect since testing for perchlorate began in December 2000.
The city is not required to close a well with perchlorate levels below 40 ppb; it is only required to notify water users that it is serving them water with levels between 4 and 40 ppb. The decision to close this and the Nordstrom and Condit wells went beyond the state requirements. Nordstrom is located at East Dunne and Murphy avenues; the Condit well, at Condit and Barrett avenues, both east of the freeway and north of Tennant Avenue.
Gilroy has upped the testing regimen on its eight municipal wells to at least once a month. So far, no detectable levels of perchlorate have surfaced, although the chemical was found in a monitoring well off Leavesley Avenue that’s within a mile of a city well. Officials are awaiting results from the most recent round of testing.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the Morgan Hill council approved spending up to $640,000 to construct an emergency well on Peet Road south of Cochrane Road and north of Live Oak High School. The city had been working with developer Dick Oliver of Dividend Homes to build a well on that site to serve – eventually – housing developments springing up in that area.
City Manager Ed Tewes replied to a question from Mayor Dennis Kennedy about reimbursement for the $640,000.
“We will go after reimbursement for these costs,” said Tewes, emphasizing the word “will.” He did not say after whom the city would go, but the Olin Corp. has accepted responsibility for perchlorate contamination of the underground aquifer south of Tennant Avenue.
Ashcraft said a test well had been drilled 100 feet from the new site a year ago.
“This water tested very high quality,” he said, “and without nitrates.”
Kennedy asked if the water had been tested for perchlorate.
“No,” Ashcraft said, “because the test hole was filled in.” He said this was normal procedure and that the new hole had to be dug before the water could be tested for the chemical.
Ashcraft told the council that, in its search for new, high-quality sources of water, his department had commissioned a study to find the best water under Morgan Hill. That turned out to be a “vein” running east of U.S. 101, north of Dunne Avenue and continuing north past Cochrane Road into the Holden Boys Ranch. This includes the area in which the new Peet Road well will be constructed.
Ashcraft said, with the formal bidding process waived for the emergency and an agreement made with the Ruby family (the property owners) for an easement, construction should begin April 1 and be completed by June 30.
The city’s peak water use is during July – 20 to 25 percent more than in June, Ashcraft told the council. With the new well, he said, the city should be able to meet its water needs.
Chuck Dillmann, a Realtor deeply involved as a community volunteer, rose to offer an alternative to continuous well-building.
“You might consider looking at a blending facility instead of drilling these new wells,” he said. Kennedy replied that the council would ask city staff to look into that and said the city’s new reservoir, built in 2002 west of Community Park, could probably handle the storage.
“The blending facility would lead to the development of a surface water treatment plant,” Tewes said. “Olin is very likely to be involved in the financing.”
In the meantime, city officials insist the water is safe to drink.
“Morgan Hill city water meets or exceeds all state regulations for safety,” Ashcraft said.
Perchlorate in water came to wide public attention in mid-January when it was discovered that several private wells south of the Olin site were contaminated with action levels of the chemical. The Tennant Avenue well located across the street from the Olin site was shut down on April 17, 2002, having tested at levels between 5 and 7 ppb. A private well a few hundred feet farther south tested at 90 ppb. The city built a new well on San Pedro Avenue and sent the $710,000 bill to Olin; the two entities are still in negotiation over the cost.
Until January 2002, the state action level for perchlorate was 18 ppb. There is no national standard though one must be set by Jan. 1, 2004; it may be as low as 1 ppb.
So far, 268 of 718 wells tested south to Gilroy have shown detectable (4 ppb and up) signs of the chemical. Olin is providing free bottled water to residents until the water can be cleared or an alternate source found. Perchlorate is known to cause thyroid malfunctions and is suspected of causing some thyroid cancers. It is recommended that infants and pregnant women avoid the chemical. The extent of danger from the chemical is, so far, not well documented or known.
Olin and Standard Fusee Corp. had manufactured highway safety flares between 1955 and 1996 on a site just east of Railroad and north of Tennant avenues. The three municipal wells are all located north of the Olin site.
In other perchlorate-related news, the Regional Water Quality Control Board has given Olin Corp. until March 31 to present a plan to clean the ground water and contaminated soil on its Tennant/Railroad site. Olin will submit a plan for the rest of the affected area – as far south as Leavesley Road in Gilroy – before December. RWQCB is the lead agency supervising the Olin-perchlorate issue and based in San Luis Obispo.
Santa Clara Valley Water District: www.valleywater.org or 888-HEY-NOAH (888-439-6624) • San Martin Neighborhood Alliance: www.smneighbor.org
