EDITOR: Until a few months ago, most of us never gave a thought
to our drinking water. But that was before perchlorate entered our
vocabulary and significantly raised our concerns about the quality
of what comes out of the faucet.
EDITOR:
Until a few months ago, most of us never gave a thought to our drinking water. But that was before perchlorate entered our vocabulary and significantly raised our concerns about the quality of what comes out of the faucet.
The people affected by the perchlorate plume are correct in their anger and justified in their demands that the pollution be cleaned up and the problem solved. Cleaning up the mess will be expensive and difficult. Solving the problem will be all that and more. We should press for a long-term solution that eliminates the issue, and not simply removing the perchlorate plume.
The perchlorate crisis gives us an opportunity to change and improve the delivery of water to the growing area between Morgan Hill and Gilroy. It is time for a centralized water system, complete with regulations and laws that remove private wells from drinking supplies and prohibit new construction without connecting to the system.
As the area slowly migrates from a pure agricultural zone, to one with an increasing number of homes and to a lesser extent, businesses, the importance of having a quality water supply is paramount. And because we rely on groundwater supplies, the time has also come to end the use of septic fields. Why add pollution to the groundwater when we have the technology and the facility to treat household waste.
The simple fact that water supplies in Morgan Hill and Gilroy are safe and not impacted by the perchlorate should be evidence enough.
Certainly the construction of a new water system and the expansion of the regional wastewater facility will be expensive. Very expensive! But it will maintain and appreciate property values better than anything else. After all, who would want to buy a house that didn’t have a safe or adequate water supply?
David Cohen, Morgan Hill
