By giving the newspaper a copy of a prematurely released
clean-up and abatement order for Olin Corporation’s perchlorate
contamination, regional water board shows refreshing sign of
transparency
The ongoing Olin Corporation perchlorate clean-up effort took another turn last Friday when an official with the California Regional Water Quality Control Board hastily announced during a Perchlorate Community Advisory Group (PCAG) meeting that the latest clean-up and abatement order was ready for public review.
Turns out board staffers, overly anxious to be responsive to PCAG and to all involved in the clean-up effort, released the report too soon to one community official.
You have to commend the board’s effort to keep Morgan Hill and San Martin residents informed. You also have to commend Roger Briggs, executive officer of the board, for giving the Morgan Hill Times a copy of the draft order instead of stonewalling. Many a public agency would refer the matter to legal counsel to search for an exemption allowing them to sit on the document. Instead, Briggs and his agency, when confronted with a black-and-white public records issue, chose to hand over the document without delay.
The law on this matter is clear – Any time a draft document is released to one member of the public, whether in draft form or otherwise, all others are entitled to the same document.
The board and Olin owe residents who live along the plume, and who have had to survive on bottled or filtered water, speedy answers. But when documents such as these are not ready, it’s best to give those preparing them ample time to draft clean-up provisions that make sense and will actually help put an end to this saga without excessive costs to Olin, the city, the board and the California Department of Health Services.
Board engineer Hector Hernandez informed residents that the agency plans to allow at least 45 days for public comments on the draft report. A final vote on the clean-up order by the regional water board could take place Dec. 7 in San Luis Obispo.
We’re not completely certain that Olin is the only culprit of the contamination found along a 10-mile perchlorate plume that originates from the southeast part of the Tennant Avenue plant all the way to Highway 152. Water officials have said they will and are investigating other parties who could have also contributed to the polluted state of the underground water.
Perhaps the most controversial element of the report is one that is hardly new to residents. The document formalizes the water board’s demand that Olin clean up groundwater to pre-contamination levels, a level significantly lower than the public health goal of 6 parts per billion. But the jury is still out on who or what else may have contributed to so-called “background” levels of contamination. Olin claims that fertilizers from local mushroom farmers and other sources of perchlorate may have contributed to the contamination.
But until that claim is proven with forensic studies (now under way), water board officials plan to stick to the more aggressive target for clean-up. Hernandez recently told the Morgan Hill Times that they would loosen that standard if Olin demonstrates there is little to be gained from substantial investments in additional clean-up. Again, we see this as an agency action that bespeaks a fair and judicious approach.
