Perchlorate discovered in some water supplies; county urges
testing
To have your well tested free of charge, call 408-408-265-2607
ext. 2649.
Up to 450 wells in Morgan Hill and San Martin are in danger of
contamination from a thyroid-disrupting chemical that would make
them unusable, perhaps forever.
Perchlorate discovered in some water supplies; county urges testing
To have your well tested free of charge, call 408-408-265-2607 ext. 2649.
Up to 450 wells in Morgan Hill and San Martin are in danger of contamination from a thyroid-disrupting chemical that would make them unusable, perhaps forever.
Tests so far in an area near Morgan Hill’s defunct Olin Standard plant at 425 Tennant Ave. have confirmed seven cases of contamination. The Santa Clara Valley Water District wants owners of all 450 wells in an area bounded by Tennant Avenue to the north, Masten Avenue to the south, Monterey Road to the west and Center Avenue to the east to call the county to arrange for testing.
The company was in business for 40 years.
“My wife has a thyroid problem,” said Bob Cerruti, a member of the San Martin Neighborhood Alliance whose well was tested at more than twice the EPA limit. “Why didn’t the Water District jump on this earlier? Why did they tell us the bad news so late?”
“We’re trying to stay calm and take things logically,” said Drake Fenn, pastor of the Family Worship Center on Middle Avenue, where the well will be tested next week.
Olin, which made road flares, has been identified as the source of the plume of the chemical perchlorate, which interferes with the absorption of iodine into the thyroid and can cause delayed development in children if consumed by expectant mothers.
“Pregnant women and children are at the highest risk,” said Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the Santa Clara County health officer who appeared at a San Jose news conference Thursday to announce the problem.
Olin is providing bottled water to the owners of the seven contaminated wells, however, Cerruti isn’t among them. He said his well has to fail its test next week before he qualifies for emergency water. Until then he’s buying bottled water for drinking.
“Our first concern,” said Harvey Packard, senior engineer at the state Regional Water Quality Control Board, “is that wells be tested and that alternative sources of drinking water be found.”
Packard said the source of the contamination could be an evaporation pond where Olin dumped rinse water used in manufacturing. He said there is no reason to suspect wholesale dumping.
The pollution originally was discovered in August 2000, when a potential buyer of the property had tests performed. Morgan Hill officials took the city’s Tennant Avenue well off line April 15, 2002, the day they learned of perchlorate levels almost double the 4 parts per billion limit allowed by the EPA and state Department of Health Services, said City Manager Ed Tewes.
By fall 2002, the state RWQCB demanded the tests of domestic wells a mile to the south, southeast and southwest of the plant. The board ordered officials from Olin, based in Charleston, Tenn., to go door-to-door if they had to, according to a letter the state sent June 13, 2002, to the Tennessee-based company.
Subsequent tests found contamination at U-Save Rockery, where water held a whopping 98 ppb of perchlorate. Company officials – who did not return telephone calls Thursday – were very apologetic, said Rockery owner Ray Bunt.
“It’s contaminated, it’s non-potable,” Bunt said. “It’s been that way for probably 20 years. I’m not one to make a big deal about something I don’t know about. I figured after 24 years of drinking it, I’m still walking around.”
Perchlorate is used in the manufacturing of solid fuels for rockets, missiles, flares, fireworks, air bag inflators and flares. It is nearly impossible to remove from water, and boiling only concentrates its presence.
In the early 1990s, Hollister munitions company Pacific Scientific was discovered to have polluted well water around San Juan Road. The company subsequently paid for a pipeline to carry city water to residents whose wells were contaminated. During the same time period, Rancho Cordova lost 20 wells because of rocket fuel contamination. In San Jose, the Pratt & Whitney Space Propulsion plant is contaminated.
Olin Corp., which produced road, rail and marine flares in Morgan Hill from 1956 to 1996, cleaned up the site when it pulled out in 1997, according to Mike Di Marco, a spokesman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
The firm wasn’t required to test for perchlorate, Di Marco said. In fact, Di Marco added, toxic cleanup work didn’t look for perchlorate until 2000.
“Technology became available then to separate perchlorate from water,” Di Marco said.
The San Martin Water Co. originally recorded trace amounts, but later tests showed the wells are clean. Water from Morgan Hill’s well along Tennant Avenue registered 7 ppb.
Tewes said the city drilled a new well at the regional soccer complex along Condit Avenue to replace the Tennant well because the summer high-use period was approaching. As backup, the city acquired a mobile nitrate processing plant to treat water at another well that had been closed because of high nitrate readings.
Nitrate in water has been linked to the blue-baby syndrome, which hampers the utilization of oxygen in infants. Nitrates often are the result of agricultural runoff.
Tewes said the city holds Olin responsible for the cost of the Condit Avenue well. About $400,000 of the $700,000 project has been spent, he said.
Perchlorate is associated with the disruption of thyroid functions, which can potentially lead to the formation of tumor. When the thyroid is disrupted, changes in human metabolism can occur.
In 1998, the EPA put perchlorate on its list of substance to be considered for regulation, and the following year required monitoring of drinking water for the substance.
For more information and to examine Regional Water Quality Control Documents visit www.valleywater.org
