Morgan Hill – Road flare manufacturer Olin Corporation plans to stop providing free bottled water over the next month to hundreds of households between Gilroy and Morgan Hill.
The move, expected for more than a year, comes as the company prepares to release a study about its role in creating a 9.5-mile plume of perchlorate contamination stretching south from its former Tennant Avenue plant. The company has argued increasingly in recent months that perchlorate, a sodium that can cause thyroid dysfunction in high enough levels, could have come from other sources.
Olin notified 1,200 households at the beginning of the month that their bottled water shipments may end in coming weeks.
Between 600 and 800 households, most of them lying on the edges of the plume, are expected to lose their supply by the end of next month, according to Olin project manager Rick McClure.
In May 2005, the State Water Resources Control Board ruled that Olin could discontinue water shipments to homes with water supplies found to have perchlorate levels of 6 parts per billion or less over four straight quarters.
“I think this is good news for the people,” McClure said. “They want to be reassured that their water is safe.”
But he urged residents to have their water tested for other harmful substances such as nitrates, which Olin measured at above-minimum safety levels in numerous wells in the last year.
Since the perchlorate plume stretching from its former plant was discovered in 2003, the company has provided bottled water at a monthly cost of $65,000 – or more than $2 million over the life of the program.
The company plans to provide a two-week window before phasing out the shipments for hundreds of households in the next four weeks. The first letters are expected to begin arriving early next week.
Sylvia Hamilton, a San Martin resident and chair of the Perchlorate Community Advisory Group, said the decision has been a long time coming.
“One of the good things about it is that they’ll be giving people two weeks so that they have time to check it out and make sure the data from the samplings is accurate,” Hamilton said. “Certainly the regional (water) board will need time to check out all the data. I’m very pleased that they’re giving some time so the residents can make sure they are being correctly terminated. That’s good news.”
The company plans to release a major “feasibility” study at the end of the month detailing what it believes are the sources of perchlorate contamination in the area, along with potential methods for clean-up.
McClure would not comment on the substance of the report before its official release.
In recent months, the company has sought to pin some portion of existing contamination on a variety of unrelated sources, including local mushroom farms. Meanwhile, Olin representatives have argued against the need for extensive clean-up based on claims that the natural flow of groundwater is lowering perchlorate levels.
For the moment, regulators at the Central Coast Water Quality Control Board are retaining a healthy dose of skepticism.
“Exactly how much of the clean-up they’re responsible for is what we’re trying to address,” said Hector Hernandez, a water board engineer.
