City officials want to see more testing of water wells to the
north of the Tennant Avenue area where perchlorate from a former
flare plant entered South Valley
’s groundwater basin – a request that officials with the state’s
Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board seem likely to
support.
But that could set up a potential conflict with Olin Corp. – the owners of the now-defunct plant – whose officials believe the factory did not contribute to perchlorate contamination in wells north of the site.
At a meeting of the regional water board’s perchlorate community advisory group Thursday, Mayor Dennis Kennedy said the city wanted more testing not only north of Tennant Avenue – where the flare plant was located near the intersection with Railroad Avenue – but also north of Dunne Avenue, the next highway exit to the north of Tennant.
Harvey Packard, a senior groundwater resources engineer with the regional water board, seemed to agree testing is needed in that direction. He noted that three wells to the northeast of the flare site have shown detectable levels of perchlorate.
During March 2003, the city’s Condit and Nordstrom municipal wells and one of two on Dunne Avenue tested above 4 parts per billion for perchlorate – the state “action level” that triggers noticing requirements – and were closed. All are located north of the Tennant Avenue flare plant site.
“We will be asking Olin to look into those areas north and east of the (flare) site to determine if (perchlorate) is there and if (Olin) is causing the problem,” Packard told the committee.
Some residents with private wells in the Hill Road area have also reportedly detected perchlorate through private testing, although the water district and Olin have not yet launched generalized testing programs there.
But informed of Kennedy and Packard’s comments Thursday, an Olin official said there are no plans to sample anywhere else north of the former factory site.
Rick McClure, Olin’s project manager for the South Valley contamination cleanup project, said there would have to be some means of transporting perchlorate north of the flare site in order to justify sampling there. The groundwater flow is to the southeast, he said.
“What that means to Olin in our discussions with the regional board is that the perchlorate detections north of Tennant Avenue are unrelated to the Olin site … ,” he said. “We are sampling in the southeast direction and taking our environmental responsibility seriously … but a regional investigation of any and all perchlorate is above the call of duty, so to speak.
“Olin is going to do the right thing, but there are limitations. We are investigating perchlorate related to the Olin site.”
In April, the city returned a $450,000 check from Olin that would have covered slightly more than half the cost of replacing a Tennant Avenue well closed in 2002 because of perchlorate.
The city had estimated it would cost $710,000 to replace the Tennant well but had not sent a bill. City officials said Olin balked at paying some expenses such as staff and legal time and refused to indemnify the city against future claims resulting from harm the perchlorate-tainted well water may have caused consumers.
The city has yet to receive further payment.
Meanwhile, Olin has submitted plans to the regional board to conduct more well sampling in South County, Packard said Thursday. He anticipates the company will sample around Gilroy’s Leavesley Road as well as areas west of Monterey Road.
The company is also working on a long-term monitoring plan with the regional board that Packard said will likely include repeated tests of certain wells for as long as 40 years.
South of the Tennant site, Packard said Olin has proposed to pay for bottled water for any well that tests for perchlorate levels above 2 ppb until such time as the well tests below 4 ppb for four consecutive quarters.
The company will also pay for bottled water to some wells that do not detect for the presence of perchlorate – but which are physically near wells that have tested positive. Those wells will be identified by Olin and the regional board on a case-by-case basis, Packard said.
“There are a lot of gray areas we’re looking very closely at,” he said.
Olin and the Santa Clara Valley Water District are both paying for the bottled water. Water district officials hope to be reimbursed for the expense.
Another topic at the meeting was whether local agencies should perform testing for perchlorate in the local produce that is due to hit markets this summer.
County Agricultural Commissioner Greg Van Wassenhove said he is pressuring federal agencies to complete a comprehensive action plan for produce that would include both testing and a risk assessment.
Such an assessment would provide meaning to the data by considering factors such as dietary intake, he said, and could include data from other areas affected by perchlorate besides South County.
“I feel a comprehensive, more global approach is much better,” he said.
In the meanwhile, Van Wassenhove said he is working to identify independent laboratories where residents can get produce tested on their own if they choose.
Committee chairwoman and San Martin resident Sylvia Hamilton wondered if government “snapshot” studies here would be valuable, both in producing more specific information and in ratcheting up the pressure on higher government.
The Environmental Working Group recently conducted such a study when it tested lettuce samples pulled off supermarket shelves that likely came from areas in Southern California and Arizona irrigated with perchlorate-tainted water.
“Would a snapshot study help encourage others to do proper studies?” she asked.
Van Wassenhove said local governments aren’t likely to fund such a study because of the lack of a risk assesment, but that some sort of data collection needs to be available and begin soon – hence his search for private labs.
Representatives from Morgan Hill’s Sequoia Analytical Laboratories said they can currently test for the presence of perchlorate in lettuce, corn, honeydew melon and cantelope at levels above 50 ppb. Rates are $300 per sample for one sample per homeowner, although volume discounts may be available.
