Regional water board says Olin must continue water delivery for
78 Morgan Hill wells, mulls smaller contaminations in San
Benito
Perchlorate isn’t just a problem for thousands of Morgan Hill
residents who depend on private water wells. The chemical, used in
rocket fuel, fireworks and road flares, is now rearing its
cancer-causing head in isolated rural spots in San Benito County,
it was revealed at a meeting of the state’s regional water board
last week.
Olin Corporation, the company linked to the 10-mile long Morgan
Hill perchlorate plume discovered in late 2002, will have to
continue providing bottled water for 78 wells in the area
– for now – members of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality
Control Board decided at their meeting held last Friday in Salinas.
The underground plume is still on the move, said staff scientists
for the board. It has traveled through San Martin and crossed under
Highway 101 toward Gilroy, aff
ecting any groundwater aquifers it contacts.
Regional water board says Olin must continue water delivery for 78 Morgan Hill wells, mulls smaller contaminations in San Benito
Perchlorate isn’t just a problem for thousands of Morgan Hill residents who depend on private water wells. The chemical, used in rocket fuel, fireworks and road flares, is now rearing its cancer-causing head in isolated rural spots in San Benito County, it was revealed at a meeting of the state’s regional water board last week.
Olin Corporation, the company linked to the 10-mile long Morgan Hill perchlorate plume discovered in late 2002, will have to continue providing bottled water for 78 wells in the area – for now – members of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board decided at their meeting held last Friday in Salinas. The underground plume is still on the move, said staff scientists for the board. It has traveled through San Martin and crossed under Highway 101 toward Gilroy, affecting any groundwater aquifers it contacts.
Perchlorate is a new contamination phenomenon occurring throughout the nation. Now the regional board’s staff is grappling with new, more isolated perchlorate hot spots that have been found in rural areas of San Benito County. Among the industrial sites where state officials say they have discovered the chemical are McCormick Selph on Union Road, the Whittaker site near the Hollister sewage ponds on San Juan Road, BAE Systems (formerly United Defense) on John Smith Road, and the newest discovery, MK Ballistics on Santa Ana Road. All the companies are located within Hollister or its immediate environs.
The proprietors of these companies have developed and submitted cleanup plans to the regional board and begun remediation processes, with the exception of the latest company added to the San Benito perchlorate list: MK Ballistics. In that case, the newly found perchlorate contamination is still being analyzed and investigated not just by scientists from the regional water board but also by officials of the state Department of Toxic Substances, some of whom participated in a raid on the nonlethal munitions maker in December.
While the cases near Hollister might be alarming, particularly to nearby residents on well water and farmers who cultivate near the hot spots, they are small in comparison to the size and scale of the seeping, traveling Morgan Hill perchlorate plume, which the state scientists estimate is traveling one to three feet a day – or 1,000 feet per year.
The Morgan Hill plume has become something of an infamous cause among local politicians who want to protect their constituents, including Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz.
“The cleanup will take a decade,” said Craig O’Donnell, a representative from Laird’s office, who gave input at the meeting.
On the board’s agenda was a request from Olin Corp. to cut off bottled water delivery to 78 wells, which company heads say have tested at acceptable state levels. O’Donnell said Assemblyman Laird won’t jump into that argument but is concerned about changes in perchlorate levels in those wells in the future. That’s why Laird wants all wells in the affected area – now up to some 860 – to continue to be monitored.
“The concern is, what if they need it (the bottled water) in the future?” O’Donnell told the board. “Are the individuals truly protected against that 6 parts per billion [of perchlorate]? The well owner has to ask himself, ‘Is it really safe?'”
The thing is, Olin is the one monitoring the wells.
Asked if that’s not akin to the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse, staff engineer Kristina Seley said the company is not left to its own devices.
“Monitoring is performed in strict accordance with (regional) Water Board monitoring and reporting requirements,” Seley said. “All monitoring is done in conjunction with and with prior approval of the Water Board. Strict sampling and analytical procedures must be followed. All data results are carefully reviewed by Water Board staff, Santa Clara Valley Water District staff and various other agencies and interested people.”
No safe amount of rocket fuel
During the all-day meeting, several of the nine-member board sparred with Kurt Richards, a representative of Olin Corp. Olin once made road flares in northwest Morgan Hill. Since last September, Olin has been requesting to stop water delivery to approximately 180 people using 78 wells, claiming that since those wells have tested at 4 parts per billion for perchlorate – under the state “safe amount” standard of 6 ppb – for four consecutive seasons, they are not obligated to provide the water any longer.
“The wells are currently at ‘non-detect’ levels,” Richardson said. “There is no danger. There is no risk to these people. It’s a substantial cost issue for Olin, money that could be better spent [on mitigation].”
Richardson added that the state’s proclaimed acceptable perchlorate level in drinking water is far below the standard set by the National Academy of Sciences, which is 24.5 parts per billion.
The board seemed to regard the statement as a canard steeped in junk science.
“Do you live in that area?” asked Vice Chair Russell Jeffries of Salinas.
“No, I do not,” Richardson replied.
“Do you drink that water?”
“No, I do not.”
“What’s so interesting about that is the disparity of numbers,” said Chair Jeffrey Young of Santa Barbara.
“They put in a factor of 10 for unborn children and pregnant women,” Richardson shot back.
Yes, said Jeffrey, and why not throw in what the military believes is an acceptable amount of perchlorate – which is apparently 200 parts per billion – and isn’t it curious that most perchlorate contaminations across the nation are source pointed at military installations?
That’s when board member Gary Shallcross of Monterey jumped into the fray. For several years Shallcross worked with the Perchlorate Community Advisory Group, made up of public officials and people affected by the Morgan Hill plume, at the request of Assemblyman Laird. Shallcross removed himself from the task force a year and half ago in order to once again resume making decisions as a regional water board member on the matter. He has studied the issue of perchlorate extensively.
“The NAS is subject to political and industry pressures,” Shallcross offered. “Several scientists from that group are basically industry hacks.”
The numbers game
Perchlorate is a known thyroid-disrupter, which even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Massachusetts have said only concentrations of 1 part per billion is safe to drink for those most vulnerable to thyroid disruption – babies, pregnant women and seniors.
The Pentagon and its contractors say over 200 ppb of perchlorate is safe and have challenged independent and other governmental findings, while California health officials say all people can safely drink 6 ppb of perchlorate each day.
Only recently did the state develop that safe standard for its presence in drinking water, but the level still is not considered “official.” Meanwhile, environmental and government officials throughout the nation are having to deal with newly discovered plumes of it increasingly, with most found at military installations or private sites contracted by the Defense Department.
Sylvia Hamilton, the chair of the Perchlorate Community Advisory Group based in San Martin, told the regional board her group doesn’t object to Olin’s bid to stop bottled water delivery. They would rather see the money go into remediation and monitoring. Her group keeps hearing from Olin and regional board staff that the “trend of the plume” is dropping – that perchlorate amounts are leveling out since Olin cut off the source of contamination.
“But in San Martin there are thousands of wells and it’s impossible for the people to know the trend,” Hamilton told the board. “I’m not too overly excited about the lower numbers. Some people say the source has been cut off but it doesn’t make sense for the plume to go down all of a sudden. I don’t think the plume has up and turned away from our community.”
In an interview after the meeting, Hamilton said, “One of the things I have been concerned about is the southern migration of the plume. We want it fenced. We don’t want it to hit the Pajaro River.”
Another resident, Robert Method of Gilroy, says he’s not convinced Olin’s cleanup efforts, which include the injection of treated groundwater into the area, have alleviated the problem. In a letter he sent to the regional board, Method states, “We have been homeowners in this area for 33 years. We have raised four children who are now adults. Two have recently been diagnosed with thyroid problems that require daily medications. My wife and I have no history of illnesses in our families.”
“The bottom line is that before Olin contaminated our water supply we had clean water,” Method added.
The regional board was of the same mind. In the banter between Olin’s Richards and the board, Chair Young told him, “It’s not just numbers. It’s risk and public perception also. Don’t reduce it to numbers.”
The board took no action on the item, which means Olin won’t get out of the bottled water deliveries.
San Benito hot spots
Regional water board staffer Seley says of all the perchlorate sites in San Benito County the highest perchlorate concentrations currently detected in soil and groundwater are found at the Whittaker facility, which is a stone’s throw (about 2,000 feet) from the San Benito River.
But at least Whittaker has provided a cleanup plan to the board that sports a design to pump and treat contaminated groundwater. The company, situated near Hollister’s sewage ponds, has also conducted numerous small-scale cleanup technologies in soil and groundwater. Likewise, McCormich Selph has submitted a full-scale corrective action work plan that describes a plan for implementing groundwater treatment using hydrogen release compounds.
Cleanup at the BAE facility, where they test armor for the military not far from the county dump, might prove to be trickier since it could be receiving perchlorate contamination from a second source. Regional board staffers say a newly suspected perchlorate contamination site, MK Ballistics, is upstream and west from BAE, and a windmill well near MK recently checked in at a whopping 30 ppb for perchlorate.
“Based on the historical use of perchlorate at the MK Ballistics facility, and the detection of perchlorate in the windmill well, the board has directed the landowner and the current site operator at MK Ballistics to submit an environment investigation work plan to determine the source and extent of perchlorate, or lack thereof, at the MK Ballistics’ facility,” Seley wrote in an e-mail.
A spokesman for BAE, Herb Muktarian, said testing has been conducted at the site since 1991. More recently, BAE officials did an environmental assessment of the area, all done with oversite from regional water board engineers, and concluded there was perchlorate contamination. They will be submitting a cleanup plan to the regional board soon. But Muktarian downplayed the underground spill.
“It’s a fairly limited area, like a couple of hundred feet by a couple of hundred feet – maybe a little beyond that,” Muktarian said. “As a company, we are committed to our environmental stewardship.”
County District Attorney John Sarsfield believes the perchlorate contamination seeping out of MK Ballistics is much worse than what the regional board suspects, based on information he has received from the state Department of Toxic Substances which recently led a raid on MK Ballistics.
“They were putting high levels of heavy metals down the drain,” Sarsfield alleged. “They found black goo that looked like tar, all going down the drain.”
The area downstream from MK Ballistics, the BAE site on John Smith Road, has a history of hazardous groundwater. In the 1980s, not far from the landfill, the county once operated a hazardous waste site where mostly washwater from agricultural farms was dumped. It resulted in a rash of stillborn calves on the nearby ranch owned by Amador Lima.
“I remember when the polywogs disappeared from the stock pond,” Lima said. “After that, the calves were being stillborn. Some were deformed. It was really bad. I had to drain the pond.”
Lima says his water is better now, after the county came in and helped him clean up the contamination. But he could have another headache soon.
“MK Ballistics could be a possible source of perchlorate (at the BAE site),” Seley told the board in her updates.
