Residents want to know why bottled-water program was
discontinued
Morgan Hill – A top official with the road flare manufacturer that polluted groundwater between Morgan Hill and Gilroy is expected to answer questions next week about the company’s decision to discontinue shipments of free bottled water to hundreds of homes .
Olin Corporation Vice President Curt Richards is expected to attend a community meeting on perchlorate cleanup next week in San Martin.
The focus of the meeting will be a report Olin released in March stating that the level of harmful perchlorate the company unleashed on the South County water table is dissipating. The Olin Corp. operated on Tennant Avenue from 1955 to 1987. The plant generated a 9.5-mile plume of perchlorate-tainted groundwater stretching southeast through San Martin toward Gilroy.
Sylvia Hamilton, chairwoman of the Perchlorate Community Advisory Group, a committee of water experts, real estate agents, farmers and residents, hopes Richards makes it to the meeting as promised to answer concerns about Olin’s recently announced stoppage of free bottled water to households whose drinking water had been considered unsafe.
“It’s important for Olin to see and hear the members of the community,” Hamilton said. “I would like people to come to share their feelings, but to show respect for all parties involved. The goal is to get this cleaned up. It’s critical that community members that have impacted wells are part of that process.”
A spokeswoman for Richards did not return phone calls before presstime.
The areas of the plume stretching a mile and a half south of the Tennant Avenue site appear to have the highest concentrations of perchlorate, which causes thyroid disfunction and other health problems.
But testing further south suggests the hazard is decreasing.
“It’s likely those areas would not require much plume control,” said Hector Hernandez, a member of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board who oversees cleanup efforts. “In general we agree with (Olin’s findings) – the concentrations seem to be dissipating.”
A recent round of tests by Olin engineers showed 31 of 800 wells exceeded six parts per billion (ppb). California’s public health goal caps the acceptable level of perchlorate in drinking water at 6 ppb.
Olin previously stated that levels of contamination as high as 24 ppb would be acceptable based on national scientific studies, but the company backed off challenging a state water board order to supply some 1,200 households in South County with bottled water because the local water was unsafe for drinking purposes.
Now that some dangerous levels of perchlorate contamination are decreasing after more than a year of testing, Olin is pulling the plug on the bottled water program.
The next step for Olin comes June 30, when the company will submit a cleanup plan to the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. Hernandez said the two major questions addressed would be how much remediation Olin should do, and how much remediation is feasible within a reasonable time frame.
Hernandez emphasized the report is a working draft.
“Just because they’re submitting it doesn’t mean we’ll approve it,” he said.
But the question of whether Olin is responsible for an alleged northeast flow of perchlorate contaminating Morgan Hill’s Nordstrom Well is no longer in play, Hernandez said.
The regional water board earlier this month validated Olin’s claim of insufficient evidence linking the company to Morgan Hill’s perchlorate issue.
“We’re not saying it’s not possible,” he said. “But there were enough anomalies and data gaps that we could not make a determination at that time.”
Hernandez said the data the board analyzed had been gathered by Olin consultants and the City of Morgan Hill.
Olin is one of the country’s leading producers of copper alloys, ammunition, chlorine and caustic soda.
In April, the company posted first quarter sales of $725.1 million, compared with $560.9 million in the first quarter of 2005.
