Tempers rose Thursday night when residents who drink from
private wells possibly contaminated with the chemical potassium
perchlorate confronted a pair of spokesmen from the Santa Clara
Valley Water District. It may be a hint of the reception
representatives from several state and county agencies will face at
a public meeting to be scheduled for the week of Feb. 10.
Tempers rose Thursday night when residents who drink from private wells possibly contaminated with the chemical potassium perchlorate confronted a pair of spokesmen from the Santa Clara Valley Water District. It may be a hint of the reception representatives from several state and county agencies will face at a public meeting to be scheduled for the week of Feb. 10.
Up to 450 private wells in Morgan Hill and San Martin may be contaminated at some levels. Testing is now under way and may continue into March.
No public wells, in Morgan Hill, San Martin or Gilroy, show contamination.
The two men, Mike DiMarco, public information officer, and Jim Crowley, engineering unit manager and head of the ground water clean-up oversight unit, gave the crowd of 180 people attending a San Martin Neighborhood Alliance meeting a brief history of how the chemical came to be found in wells as much as four miles away. The affected area is a loose rectangle bounded by Tennant Avenue, Monterey Road, Masten and Center Avenues, starting at the perchlorate source, a former Olin Corp. plant at Monterey Road at Railroad Avenue.
DiMarco and Crowley stressed, however, that they could not answer questions about the long-term health effects of perchlorate in the generally low levels on people or animals, largely because the effects are not known. In fact, many of the crowds questions remained unanswered.
“We want to help you protect yourselves and to work with us,” DiMarco said. “But we don’t own the ground water basin; we only manage it.”
San Martin veterinarian Pete Keesling said that animals should not suffer long-term effects from exposure to low levels of the chemical because, except for some exotic birds, most animals don’t live long enough for exposure to mount up.
“So much is unknown,” said Greg Van Wassenhove, Santa Clara County agricultural commissioner Thursday afternoon about the effects of perchlorate on plants and animals. What is known is that perchlorate at some level tends to cause thyroid problems and some tumors in human beings. What is not known is the levels at which exposure becomes a danger.
The “action” level of perchlorate was lowered in 2002 by the state from 18 parts per billion to 4 ppb. The levels found in the 100 local private wells tested so far have been 12 and under, mostly closer to 4, except for one at 90 ppb. Not all wells in the area tested positive and retesting can produce differing results.
DiMarco said SCVWD is working its way through 400 requests for well testing, more than 30 each day.
It takes three weeks to get results back.
Olin will do an aggressive cleanup, Crowley said.
“We don’t know how long it’s been in the ground water,” he said.
The purpose of the February meeting is to bring together experts from as many public agencies as possible to try to give some shape to the problem. Also, by that time, the water district will have the results of tests on far more wells than it has now. Besides the SCVWD, the Regional Water Quality Control Board, experts from U.C. Davis on the effects on crops and the federal environmental protection agency are invited to meet the public.
“We are trying to find a time during that week (Feb. 10-14) to get all these people together,” DiMarco said Monday. The public meeting, DiMarco said, will most likely be held at the Morgan Hill Community Center or at San Martin/Gwinn School.
Perchlorate was found in the underground aquifer, which supplies wells in the area, when Olin began cleaning up the area in 2000 to ready it for sale. The nearest wells were the City of Morgan Hill Tennant well where levels of 4-7 parts per billion were found – the well was shut down immediately – and a private well at U Save Rockery, a bit further south on Railroad Avenue. That well tested at 90 ppb.
DiMarco also told the crowd that the SCVWD normally notifies residents of low-level well contaminations through the mail but, in this instance, held a news conference to get the word out as soon as possible, shortly after the agency was notified of test results for the private wells.
An important part of public outreach, DiMarco said, is contacting the large number of Spanish-speaking farm workers who live in the area and use the private wells. Public health nurses, considered the most trusted of county workers by the farm workers – according to DiMarco – are attempting to get the word out.
Bob Cerruti of Moreno Court said he owns one of the first wells tested and had trouble getting Crystal Springs to deliver enough bottled water. Olin is paying for bottled water to be delivered to all households in the affected area who request it. Jeff Metter, Crystal Springs plant manager, said Thursday afternoon that, while the company initially had difficulties getting enough supplies because of the huge, sudden demand, by Wednesday everyone was being supplied.
Cerruti also said his wife has suffered from thyroid problems.
Attorney Charles Logan, who was at the meeting to lend expertise to another issue weighing heavily on San Martin residents – the county-planned airport expansion – said some lenders have been refusing to loan money on properties in the affected area.
Olin Corp., according to California state law, is responsible for cleaning up the chemical pollution and paying for its effects. Whether or not this would include ‘back-filling’ the loss of property values is not known.
“Lawsuits will come later,” said Sylvia Hamilton, current SMNA president who was running Thursday’s meeting. She also asked the crowd “not to shoot the messengers”, referring to DiMarco and Crowley.
San Martin resident Louise Helland complained that doctors are overwhelmed with questions to which they have no answers.
“If this isn’t a county health problem, what is?
DiMarco assured her that Martin Fenstersheib, M.D., the chief Santa Clara County health officer had prepared and distributed a fact sheet on perchlorate and humans.
“What about bathing,” Helland asked. “Is it safe?” She said her daughter has thyroid problems too.
Helland also reported receiving a mailer guaranteeing pure water, mail she considered a scam.
Attorney Rick Van t’rood, who lives – with a private well – just across the street from the eastern border, asked if reverse osmosis systems could remover perchlorate from water. Crowley said none had been certified effective but it was not impossible that a future system could do the job.
The crowd got a bit testy toward the end of Thursday’s meeting but SMNA director, Barry Schiller, praised the water district.
“Very few agencies have been as forthcoming as the water district,” he said.
Yolanda Cotterall had a different opinion.
“I’d like to see people stay indignant,” she said.
The SCVWD perchlorate hotline is 265-2607 x2649; the website is www.valleywater.org
