Imagine going to a restaurant, and the waiter brings glasses of
water to your table and offhandedly remarks,
“Someone’s dog peed in that water.” Before you can react,
another waiter chides his co-worker, “Don’t be so dramatic. It was
just a drop or two.”
Imagine going to a restaurant, and the waiter brings glasses of water to your table and offhandedly remarks, “Someone’s dog peed in that water.” Before you can react, another waiter chides his co-worker, “Don’t be so dramatic. It was just a drop or two.” Then someone with a sophisticated gadget elbows his way to your table, sticks a probe into one of the glasses, and pronounces, “It’s only a couple parts per billion. Go ahead and drink it. It’s safe.” Living in the South Valley, we don’t have to imagine bizarre scenario like this. We live it, thanks to the perchlorate in our groundwater.
For those who missed the past four years, Olin Corp. spewed sodium perchlorate into our local groundwater from their road flare factory operation in Morgan Hill.
A plume of perchlorate (which can mess with your thyroid function, accumulate in large amounts in lettuce, and do other unsavory things) is now in the groundwater we use to drink, irrigate crops, give to pets and farm animals, etc. The plume has moved, but it hasn’t disappeared. (If you want lots of details, go to www.morganhillt imes.com or www.gilroydispatch.com and search for “perchlorate.”)
I’ve said it before: All it takes is any amount of pollutant for us to consider the water tainted. The amount isn’t the point. And yet, the EPA, the state, the local water boards and, of course Olin have been busy crafting semantics instead of implementing far-reaching solutions. I can imagine this two-word phrase came up at some point: “Define ‘tainted.’” To them, there’s a threshold at which the water doesn’t count as polluted, a level that they call acceptable. But it shouldn’t be acceptable to us. Nothing except zero perchlorate should be tolerated.
I can hardly contain my disgust at the characters who are supposed to hold Olin’s feet to the fire and get the perchlorate out of our groundwater. They’ve waited long enough for the problem to be redefined so that, technically, it won’t be so much of a problem. Until recently, the acceptable amount of perchlorates – if indeed any perchlorate in water where they don’t normally occur can be called acceptable – was being argued between 1ppb and 8ppb. Reporter Matt King last week reported the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was moving to set a national standard for perchlorates in drinking water at 24 parts per billion (24ppb). King earlier reported that Olin’s been let off the hook for supplying bottled water to residents whose wells are tainted – because studies of the effects of perchlorates have been inconclusive. Not only that, but Olin has until January 2006 to present their clean-up plan. Remember: The pollution was originally found in 2000.
Am I shocked that those most in favor of the 24ppb threshold are members of working groups assembled from some of the country’s worst polluters: NASA, the Department of Defense, Lockheed-Martin, Aerojet, and Kerr-McGee Chemical? Not at all. The phrases “in cahoots” and “foxes guarding the henhouse” come quickly to mind.
Why are they jury rigging the numbers? Because there are areas with even bigger perchlorate issues than we’re confronting, and these guys don’t want to watch their lucrative government contracts or stock value turn to dust. They see this and other pollution issues as winner takes all, and if it means sick people, deformed babies, or slow poisoning of the food supply or wildlife, well, that’s just part of the price of free enterprise.
The current federal administration thinks mercury pollution from burning more coal is a mere nuisance, and is notorious for having tried to raise “acceptable” limits for arsenic in drinking water, the Bush administration has advocated treating instead of preventing global warming or acid rain. So sending an SOS to Washington isn’t going to cut it.
It’s time we start writing to all our elected representatives and putting them on notice that (1) the state of California shouldn’t use the EPA’s recommended 24ppb as a threshold, and (2) that they have to force Olin to clean up this mess pronto or face being banned from doing business in California.
Your phone book has all the phone numbers and addresses of your state and federal representatives (otherwise, go online and search). Call, write, or email them.
Tell them this: We want action now and we don’t want the threshold raised from California’s current 6ppb to 24ppb, or come their next election cycle, they’ll be joining the still bulging ranks of the unemployed.
A tech writer, editor and web developer, Tom Mulhern is a longtime South Bay resident. He and his wife have been living in Gilroy for three years. His column appears periodically in The Times. You can reach him at tm************@***oo.com
