Olin should move its dirty soil out of Morgan Hill – and because
it
’s not willing to do it voluntarily, the state’s Regional Water
Quality Control Board should immediately issue an emergency order
forcing the company to do so.
Olin should move its dirty soil out of Morgan Hill – and because it’s not willing to do it voluntarily, the state’s Regional Water Quality Control Board should immediately issue an emergency order forcing the company to do so.
This is not a precedent-setting request. When partially treated sewage was dumped into the Pajaro River because of problems at the Morgan Hill-Gilroy wastewater treatment plant, an emergency order was issued.
At the company’s now-defunct road flare factory in Morgan Hill, perchlorate-tainted soil leaches its poison into South Valley’s groundwater at this very moment. We are in yet another rainy season, meaning another season’s precipitation is filtered through that perchlorate-laced soil, picking up the poison and delivering to a plume that it headed south through San Martin and toward Gilroy.
If the emergency order had been issued as soon as the perchlorate was discovered in October 2000, the perchlorate would have had four fewer rainy seasons to increase the plume’s poisonous reach. If the emergency ordered had been issued in March 2002, when Morgan Hill had to close a municipal well due to high perchlorate levels from the Olin site, the perchlorate plume would have lost last winter’s growth. Now, here we are in January 2004 and Olin doesn’t want to remove the soil.
Instead, Olin wants to try applying ethanol and bacteria to the affected soil. This method would require two years for the bacteria to digest the ethanol and perchlorate and produce chlorite, which is said to be harmless.
It has been more than three years since perchlorate, a well-known health risk, was first discovered on the Olin site and exactly one year ago today since the announcement that the chemical had traveled far beyond the Tennant well. We don’t need to wait another two years for a clean-up process that might not be as effective as soil removal.
We’re tired of the deep-pocketed corporation responsible for the perchlorate plaguing South Valley dragging its feet and pinching pennies when it comes to cleaning up the mess caused by its former road flare factory in Morgan Hill.
We’re tired of the laissez-faire attitude toward enforcing a responsible cleanup effort on the part of regional and state water officials.
Whether it takes 100 or 1,000 trucks, no matter how hefty the cost, that perchlorate-tainted soil needs to be hauled away – now. It’s as much as a public health threat as piles of raw sewage steaming in the Pajaro.
We urge our readers to demand that state officials order Olin to remove the perchlorate-laced soil that’s poisoning our water.
