After more than three years of meetings and hundreds of pages of
reports and comments, the state water board overseeing perchlorate
cleanup at the Olin Corp. facility on Friday ordered the company to
clean up two of the most contaminated areas instead of one. The
board effectively rejected Olin’s requests to amend the order via
its decision.
SAN LUIS OBISPO
After more than three years of meetings and hundreds of pages of reports and comments, the state water board overseeing perchlorate cleanup at the Olin Corp. facility on Friday ordered the company to clean up two of the most contaminated areas instead of one. The board effectively rejected Olin’s requests to amend the order via its decision.
With the order in effect, the Tennessee-based road flare manufacturer must include the two area, or “zones,” of aquifers, where tests revealed the highest concentration of the toxic salt. The polluted aquifers sit hundreds of feet below Morgan Hill.
The board turned away Olin arguments that treating zone B, which surrounds zone A on all sides, would cause delays, be costly and ineffective. Olin’s Director of Environmental Remediation David M. Share said cleanup throughout the entire 10-mile perchlorate plume in the
Llagas Subbasin with the hydraulic pump-and-treat system should be limited to zone A. There was no “incremental benefit and (it would) add substantial cost with potentially significant delays,” he said.
Pumping treatment wouldn’t begin until October 2009 at the earliest, when a containment system is expected to be in place, according to the order.
In related action, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board also asked for legal briefs from Olin and Morgan Hill counsel to help decide whether Olin should be compelled to provide wellhead treatment as replacement water at Morgan Hill’s Tennant well. It proved a contentious issue at the beginning of the meeting, which culminated with the board effectively rejecting Olin’s request that the order be revised.
Olin’s view, which board staff agreed with, is to continuously monitor the rest of the plume, which extends past Leavesley Road in Gilroy. The technical term for this monitoring is “monitored attenuation'” which refers to perchlorate’s tendency to naturally dissipate over time.
Olin and water board staff said test results from the first three months of this year indicate it is effective, although they conceded that concentration can fluctuate. To remedy that, they have installed ion exchange systems on the affected domestic supply wells. Olin also provides replacement water bottle service, as required by a previous board order.
Monitored attenuation isn’t enough, a chorus of local public officials and their lawyers told the board. Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate said he was “frustrated and frankly a little bit angry” that residents continue to pay a water surcharge to clean up the more than 4,000 pounds of perchlorate from the Llagas Subbasin – the underground aquifer from which the affected well water is pumped. The board was “timidly” taking its time to reach a decision, he said. Tate said it was a “slap in the face” to the city, while Rosemary Kamei, a Santa Clara Valley Water District board member, urged the board to require active cleanup throughout the plume.
Olin officials balked at expanding the size of the area where it was required to pump perchlorate. Michael Taraszki, project manager for Olin’s consultant, MACTEC, said concentration could increase in the area with less concentration of perchlorate. Also, Olin’s capital costs would rise from $3.9 million to $5.1 million, he said. The company has spent $34 million on cleanup efforts since 2000, when the perchlorate contamination was first discovered at Olin’s former road flare factory at 425 Tennant Ave. in Morgan Hill, Share said.
Olin expected to finish installing an extraction well in zone A this month. Insisting on extraction in zone B would require a second well, Share said. There were no plans to install one and the cleanup order doesn’t require it.
