Mail comments by Nov. 2 to Central Coast Regional Water Quality
Control Board, 895 Aerovista Place, Ste. 101, San Luis Obispo,
CA
It’s been four long years since perchlorate was first discovered in South County’s ground water and the term entered residents’ vocabularies.
Yet we still don’t have a final clean-up order for the company responsible for the pollution, Olin Corp.
The company has acknowledged that its now-closed road flare factory on Tennant Avenue in Morgan Hill is the cause of a 10-mile long perchlorate plume snaking its way through South County’s aquifers.
That factory produced road flares from 1956 to 1995, and water officials believe that perchlorate entered the ground water from an evaporation pond, onsite incineration of flares and accidental spills.
In humans, perchlorate interferes with proper thyroid function, but scientists are still determining a safe level of perchlorate in water. California officials have set that level at 6 parts per billion.
When the perchlorate pollution was discovered, Olin promised to be a good corporate citizen in cleaning up the mess that it made.
Despite that, Olin officials have been dragging their feet at every opportunity, whether they’re fighting the details of who should get bottled water, looking for other people to blame for the perchlorate (even stooping to trying to drag mushroom farmers into the stink) or fighting the level to which the perchlorate should be removed.
Apparently, Olin officials were making promises to their stockholders, not the residents of South County, when they promised to be good corporate citizens.
The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, which is responsible for approving a cleanup plan, will hold one more public hearing in San Luis Obispo on Dec. 7 before approving a final plan. The public has until Nov. 2 to mail in comments.
It’s reasonable for board members to order that Olin be required to return South County’s aquifers to a level not exceeding 6 ppb, California’s standard. If we wait until decades-long studies are complete, South County residents will be drinking, bathing, cleaning, and watering with water exceeding that level for years longer.
And that simply cannot continue.
If Olin won’t voluntarily be a good corporate citizen by cleaning up the mess that it made, it’s long past time for water board officials to order them to return South County’s ground water to less than 6 ppb.
WHO TO CONTACT ABOUT PERCHLORATE ISSUES
- Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board
895 Aerovista Place, Suite 101
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
(805) 549-3147
- Olin Corporation
190 Carondelet Plaza, Ste. 1530
Clayton, MO 63105-3443
- Perchlorate Community Advisory Group
Sylvia Hamilton, chairwoman
683-2667, or
sy*******@ho*****.com
