It
’s crunch time with Morgan Hill wells and their perchlorate
contamination. Olin Corp., which has claimed since January to be
taking “responsiblity” for the chemical’s presence in much South
Valley well water, is backing off.
It’s crunch time with Morgan Hill wells and their perchlorate contamination. Olin Corp., which has claimed since January to be taking “responsiblity” for the chemical’s presence in much South Valley well water, is backing off.
The City of Morgan Hill and the Santa Clara Valley Water District planned to have Olin eventually pay for a portable water treatment plant installed on the Tennant Avenue well, shut down in March 2002 because perchlorate had migrated across the street from a former Olin plant. Summer was about to arrive and, with it, the period of high water demand.
Now Olin is objecting to the plant, claiming it will make its mandated aquifer cleanup more difficult and expensive.
The California Regional Water Quality Control Board on May 13 directed Olin Corp. “to submit … a plan to fund wellhead treatment so the city can use the Tennant Avenue well during summer 2003” or “an alternative plan to allow the city to use the well this summer or provide water supply to replace the City of Morgan Hill’s Tennant Avenue well.”
Olin’s response, in a letter to the regional board on May 22 from vice president Curt Richards, was to assert that the company had, indeed, complied with the board’s request to provide an alternative to the Tennant well. That compliance consisted of sending a check for $455,384.50 to the city to cover the cost of digging the San Pedro avenue well. The well was constructed for the exact purpose of replacing the Tennant well.
The city, however, has returned the check because, according to City Attorney Helene Leichter, the amount covered only part of the cost. There is an assumption in the legal world that accepting partial payment can be interpreted as considering the matter closed. The estimated actual cost was $710,000, Leichter said.
Richards said a pump and treat plant on the Tennant well would “cause migration of perchlorate and unnecessarily complicate on-site remediation, while providing little in the way of remediation.” Olin also objected to the regional board’s emphasis on the treatment plant apart from other Olin-preferred methods of water replacement.
In the meantime, an ion exchange treatment plant has been installed on the Tennant well but is not yet up and running. The SCVWD has fronted the $300,000 to $400,000 to the city for the first year’s operation.
A second treatment plant, to be paid for by the city, will be installed later in the summer on the Nordstrom well.
A report to the regional board from the City Council prepared by special counsel states that Olin’s Phase 3 report does not comply with the board’s requirements, and that Olin is ignoring the possible impacts of perchlortae in wells north of the contamination site.
HISTORY
In January the water district announced that perchlorate had been found in – what turned out to be several hundred – private and municipal wells south of Tennant Avenue in Morgan Hill and, first, as far south as Masten Avenue, then Leavesley Road in Gilroy. The contaminated area was bounded on the east by Foothill Avenue and on the west by Monterey Road.
Source of the contamination was a former Olin Corp. plant at Tennant and Railroad avenues where highway safety flares were manufactured for 40 years. Perchlorate is a by-product of the manufacture – as it is in rocket fuel and some fertilizers. The chemical leached from holding ponds on the site into the underground aquifer; it then, hydrologists said, migrated in a southeasterly direction.
Perchlorate has been found to cause thyroid malfunctions and other health problems and is suspected of enhancing thyroid cancers. Infants and pregnant women are most susceptible.
As of June 24 the water district had tested 1169 wells and found 750 to be “non-detect” for perchlorate – or below 4 parts per billion. 399 wells tested between 4 and 9.9 ppb; 15 between 10 and 19.9 ppb; 3 between 20 and 39.9 ppb and 2 registering between 40 and 100 ppb. The district and Olin have been providing free bottled water to residents who get their water from those wells.
