Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 22, 2007
4. Water Quality
URBAN QUALITY ISSUES:
Merchants told water is tainted; Chula Vista center connected to pipes carrying treated sewage - San Diego Union Tribune
PERCHLORATE:
Perchlorate delay prompts protest - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION:
Water cleanup plans advance; JPL treatment plant still needs city's OK - Pasadena Star News
URBAN QUALITY ISSUES:
Merchants told water is tainted;
By Anne Kruger, staff writer
Shop owners in a
“You would flush the toilet, and it looked like it wasn't flushed,” said Amy Wise, co-owner of the Candy Bouquet, which sends out candy arrangements.
The Otay Water District assured the merchants that the water was fine, but the merchants weren't convinced. The park's property manager sent a water sample to a private lab and got some shocking news Friday.
For two years, occupants of the 17 businesses in
Somehow, the park was hooked up to a pipe carrying recycled water – treated wastewater intended solely for irrigation – instead of drinking water. Now the Otay district is dealing with distraught merchants and the question of how this could have happened.
Signs are now posted on all the businesses warning people not to drink the water. Two food-related businesses – the Candy Bouquet and Dream Dinners, a store that provides ingredients for make-and-freeze meals – were closed by the county Department of Environmental Health.
Yesterday, water district representatives met with the business owners in a hot, empty office at the business park. About 20 people crammed into the tiny room and peppered officials with questions.
“We just want peace of mind,” said Joe Padilla, owner of a computer store.
Otay General Manager Mark Watton didn't have a lot of answers, but he did make some promises. The water district would pay for medical tests for workers, and would compensate the businesses for their losses.
“We want to do whatever we need to do to make things right,” Watton said.
Watton said the water system has been repaired, but the state Department of Public Health requires more clean samples before the water is deemed safe and the two food-related businesses can reopen. Watton said he expects that to happen tomorrow afternoon.
Ken August, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Health, said officials are investigating.
“We have learned about the situation and we are evaluating it,” Au gust said.
Recycled water is not tested as rigorously as drinking water because it is not meant to be consumed. Several shop owners expressed concerns that they or their employees could be sickened by the lingering taint of bad water.
Watton said this is the first time he has heard of recycled water being accidentally sent to a drinking tap in the county.
Reports tell of cases elsewhere, including
Otay officials say they are still trying to figure out how the mistake occurred.
Watton said when the three buildings of the business park were constructed in 2002, they apparently were connected to a purple pipe, the color that usually designates a recycled-water line, instead of a pipe with drinking water.
The business park opened in July 2005, and the water that flowed in was made up of about four parts drinking water to one part recycled water, Watton said.
In May, the Otay Water District entered into a deal with the city of
That's when the merchants noticed the funky smell, look and taste.
Josh Bristol, the owner of a home-decorating store, complained to Otay officials in an e-mail July 27. Watton said workers flushed the system clean and thought the problem was resolved.
Wise, who co-owns the Candy Bouquet with Angela Mason, said she contacted the business park owners a couple of weeks ago when she noticed the water's yellowish tint.
The private lab's testing showed the presence of total coliform bacteria. The bacteria is not necessarily harmful, but its presence indicates contamination. The lab warned that the sample appeared to be recycled water, and said occupants should be warned not to drink it.
Recycling water for irrigation is not the same as the long-discussed plan in San Diego to send highly treated wastewater back to taps, a program detractors have dubbed “toilet to tap.”
Although most businesses in the
They said their customers are not at risk. Wise said her business uses only prepackaged candy. Jennifer Kober, owner of Dream Dinners, said customers are required to wear gloves when preparing food and no one drinks the tap water or uses it in food preparation. Only filtered water was used with the ingredients and in the coffee brewed there.
Wise said she fears she'll lose customers when they see the county's “closed” notice.
“People don't want to know the excuses,” she said. “They just see the sign on the door.” #
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070822-9999-1n22otay.html
PERCHLORATE:
Perchlorate delay prompts protest
By Jason Pesick, staff writer
Instead, members of the Riverside-based Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice held a rally to protest the hearing's suspension.
"How many more years do we have to wait?" said Susana Negrete of
Dozens of people marched along
"Justice delayed is justice denied!" they chanted while carrying signs calling for cleanup.
They also carried "WANTED" posters with pictures of the heads of the three companies - Goodrich, Pyro Spectaculars and Black and Decker - accused of being responsible for the pollution. The signs labeled each man "Public Enemy #1."
From industrial sites used since World War II on the north end of the city, high concentrations of perchlorate are flowing south toward
Perchlorate is used in the production of explosives, including rocket fuel, fireworks and even airbags.
It can interfere with the thyroid's production of hormones that are important to the development of the nervous system.
But that effort has faced a number of delays and has continued to increase in cost.
CCAEJ's executive director, Penny Newman, called the companies "domestic, corporate terrorists" and called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to put together a task force to take action.
Aside from the City Council, she said no other elected officials have taken action to clean up the perchlorate.
Newman called the state regulatory agencies charged with dealing with pollution "totally impotent."
"Such delays would not be tolerated in any other situation," she said.
Newman said that every day that no action is taken, the perchlorate continues to move through the city and contaminate more drinking water.
Water from contaminated wells is treated before being served to residents.
Tuesday was supposed to be the first day of state hearings to determine whether the three companies are responsible for part of the mess and whether they should be made to clean it up.
Those companies have been able to delay the hearings numerous times by raising complaints about the fairness of the process.
On Aug. 13, the companies filed suits in Los Angeles County Superior Court saying the process would violate their due process rights in part because the people prosecuting them had been talking about the case with the State Water Resources Control Board.
The board and the prosecutors had been discussing the case outside the hearings.
The judge decided to issue a temporary stay to stop the hearings from going forward until she could listen to both sides' arguments.
On Friday, the court date for her to listen to those arguments was delayed until October because of scheduling issues after the state board's lawyer asked the court to move the issue to
If that move happens, a court hearing on the fairness of the state hearings would again be delayed.
CCAEJ was supposed to be a party in the state board hearings, meaning it would have had the same amount of time in the hearings to make its case as the city of
But the process has taken so long and was such a drain on resources that CCAEJ had to drop out, Newman said before the rally.
As a nonprofit, the organization doesn't even have a lawyer to help it comply with the 26 subpoenas it received.
"I think it really raised for us how this public process ... has been really converted into this legal morass," Newman said.
During its time at the hearings, the organization wanted to focus on the key components it feels should be in a cleanup order.
Now that it is not a designated party in the hearings, its time will be allocated for public comment.
Newman said more pressure will be put on elected officials to push this process forward.
"This is an environmental disaster over there," she said. #
GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION:
Water cleanup plans advance; JPL treatment plant still needs city's OK
By Elsie Kleeman, staff writer
Plans for the $3.1 million plant, which would be built on city land at
"We all agree that the path forward that we've described ... is the right path forward," said Steve Slaten, the project's manager for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which is overseeing the cleanup.
The project will now be considered by
At public meetings last year, many residents of the residential area of Northwest Pasadena and surrounding
"We have acknowledged that we will address those concerns during construction," Slaten said.
Though plans for mitigation efforts have not been drafted yet, Slaten said, "the city process called the initial study, which we're putting together right now, will have all the detailed specifics."
Slaten expected the study would be completed in the fall.
The city's environmental review process will investigate whether the NASA plan adequately mitigates such quality-of-life issues.
It also will include more opportunities for public comment, said John Poindexter,
Slaten expected construction on the plant to begin next year, with the majority of the work being done in summer 2008.
The new treatment plant would be the third NASA has built to curb and treat a spreading plume of toxic perchlorate and volatile organic compounds that leached from waste pits in the 1940s and 1950s.
High doses of perchlorate have been shown to disrupt thyroid function in humans. Both perchlorate and volatile organic compounds are possible carcinogens.
The two other plants on the JPL campus and for the Lincoln Avenue Water Co. in
NASA and
A NASA study has claimed JPL was not the source of the that pollution, but a city consultant has called some of the agency's methods and results into question.
Though the city is still hoping to find NASA responsible, Shan Kwan, Pasadena Water and Power's director of water said it is going forward with designing and building the plant to keep the contamination plume from spreading further. #
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