Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 30, 2007
4. Water Quality
PERCHLORATE:
Environmental groups find fault with state's perchlorate standard proposal - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Rialto's toxic perchlorate plume may prompt emergency decree - Riverside Press Enterprise
Council members talk water pollution in capital - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
LOS OSOS:
Supervisors OK $25,000 tax for Los Osos homeowners; That would be in addition to a $40 monthly bill for maintenance and a one-time expense to hook up to the wastewater treatment system - San Luis Obispo Tribune
GROUNDWATER CLEANUP:
Editorial: What's the delay? Clean up refinery pollution - Bakersfield Californian
PERCHLORATE:
Environmental groups find fault with state's perchlorate standard proposal
By Jason Pesick, staff writer
The state is in the final stages of setting a standard dictating how much perchlorate can be in your drinking water.
The cap on the amount of the widespread contaminant that can be in the drinking water could be in place within weeks.
But the proposal of 6 parts per billion is not one that will sit well with the environmental community.
It could also lead to hikes in water rates, as water purveyors are forced to begin cleaning perchlorate from the water they serve.
"We're disappointed that in light of all the accumulating evidence that perchlorate is harmful at levels well below this that
Perchlorate has been discovered in drinking water throughout areas of
On Aug. 6, the state Department of Public Health submitted a standard of 6 ppb to the state Office of Administrative Law. Once its review is complete, it will send the regulation to the secretary of state to sign off on.
Since the state began developing the standard, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study showing that even at low levels, perchlorate can affect hormone levels in a large percentage of women.
The proposed standard is also higher than the 2 ppb set by
Perchlorate is used in the production of explosives like fireworks and rocket fuel.
Chilean fertilizer used in agricultural areas around the Southland is also thought to be responsible for perchlorate contamination.
It can affect the functioning of the thyroid, which is important for metabolism and neurological development.
Between August 2002 and August 2007, 251 wells had reported having perchlorate at a level of 4 ppb or higher in
Of those, 114 are in
The process of setting a standard began in August last year when the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment set a public health goal of 6 ppb.
Its task is to only take public health into consideration when setting that goal. Then the Department of Public Health takes into account how practical the proposed standard would be.
A few months after the public health goal was set, the CDC study came out in October.
"This is going to be important information for those people who are setting acceptable levels (for perchlorate)," one of the study's co-authors James Pirkle, said when the study came out.
While environmentalists aren't satisfied with
It will cost them millions of dollars to clean perchlorate out of water and lead to rate hikes.
The East Valley Water District will have to spend tens of millions of dollars building facilities to treat perchlorate ranging from levels of 6 to 12 ppb in some of its wells, said General Manager Bob Martin.
He said there will be an 11 percent rate increase this year, and that's just the beginning.
"For us it's more of a nuisance," said Ken Manning, CEO of the Chino Basin Watermaster.
A combination of treatment systems, blending contaminated water with clean water, and shutting down some wells has worked for his agency, he said.
If
Agencies around
This is because with the help of grant money, they've been treating the water to the point where they can't detect perchlorate in it.
"We're pretty well geared up for it," said Anthony "Butch" Araiza, general manager of the West Valley Water District.
Representatives of water purveyors said that if
The level in the river has been decreasing, but it is still at about 2 ppb, said Mic Stewart, water quality manager for the Metropolitan Water District.
After the CDC study came out, environmentalists asked the state to review the proposed standard early and start the process over again, but the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment declined, citing a lack of information.
The next review of the standard will be in 2009, said Sam Delson, deputy director of the office.
Last year, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill authored by then-state Sen. Nell Soto that included provisions allowing the state to compare its standard with other states' standards and would have made the process of determining a standard more transparent.
"I think frankly it's a political calculation by the Schwarzenegger administration that there are obviously lots of voices out there in industry and much more powerfully in the military establishment who don't want a strong perchlorate standard set because it's going to cost a lot more to clean it up," he said. #
Rialto
Riverside Press
By Jim Miller, staff writer
Aides to Gov. Schwarzenegger suggested the action during a meeting Wednesday in which
Both sides will follow up early next month.
A
In a letter to Schwarzenegger on Wednesday, Rialto Mayor Pro Tem Winnie Hanson and Councilman Ed Scott complained that the city and its residents are the victims of a "brilliant joint multimillion-dollar scorched earth legal assault" by companies potentially responsible for the pollution.
In a related action, the Senate Rules Committee refused Wednesday to confirm two Schwarzenegger appointees to the state Water Resources Control Board.
"What has become absolutely clear is the state is woefully inept at enforcing its clean water laws," Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, wrote in a letter to Schwarzenegger that mentioned the perchlorate problems in
City officials said they need at least $25 million to drill wells around the plume to block its migration.
Governor's spokesman Bill Maile called the meeting with
The perchlorate plume stretches about six miles from a 160-acre
Patrick Palmer, a Goodrich spokesman, said the company has been cooperative. The company has spent more than $10 million to investigate and treat the perchlorate contamination, he said.
"What the city might call unfair legal tactics we call due process. That remains a fundamental tenet of our Constitution," Palmer said.
Perchlorate disrupts the thyroid's ability to absorb iodide, a component of brain and nerve development in fetuses and babies.
Pregnant women are vulnerable to the chemical. #
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_R_bperch30.5368f3.html
Council members talk water pollution in capital
By Jason Pesick, staff writer
Mayor Grace Vargas and Councilwoman Winnie Hanson were scheduled to meet with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office.
In a letter to Schwarzenegger from two members of the council, Hanson and Ed Scott - members of the council's perchlorate subcommittee - asked for cleanup money and complained about delays the city has faced trying to get the perchlorate cleaned up.
"While we wait, the equivalent of a toxic forest fire moves across our drinking water storage system unabated," the letter reads.
Perchlorate, which was used in industrial sites on the city's north end, is flowing through the city.
The estimated cleanup cost is $300 million.
Perchlorate can be harmful to human health by interfering with the thyroid gland, which is important for metabolism and neurological development.
A spokesman for Schwarzenegger couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday evening. #
LOS OSOS:
Supervisors OK $25,000 tax for Los Osos homeowners; That would be in addition to a $40 monthly bill for maintenance and a one-time expense to hook up to the wastewater treatment system
By Sona Patel, staff writer
County supervisors have signed off on an engineer’s report that establishes how much in taxes most Los Osos property owners can expect to pay for a long-awaited sewer in the coastal town.
If paid in a lump sum, that assessment would be about $25,000 on average for a single-family home, according to the report approved Tuesday.
But county officials expect most homeowners to pay in twice-annual installments of $960 on their property tax bills.
With interest and administrative costs, that would amount to $57,600 if the county finances it for 30 years, according to figures given to The Tribune by Public Works officials Wednesday.
That would be on top of a monthly bill estimated at $40 on average, according to new county figures, to pay for ongoing operation and maintenance.
The amount of monthly bills was wrong in a Tribune front-page story Tuesday.
In addition to the assessment on property tax bills and the $40 estimated monthly bill for operation and maintenance, homeowners would have to pay a one-time expense to decommission their septic tanks and hook up to the sewer system.
That one-time expense — called “on-lot costs” — could range between $1,600 and $9,600, depending on the property, according to county estimates.
All these expenses—the assessment, the one-time expense and monthly bill for operation and maintenance — would total about $200 a month, county officials said Wednesday.
That assumes that a homeowner would pay the $25,000 assessment in twice-annual installments and would finance the one-time “on-lot” costs with a 20-year home-equity loan at 8.25 percent interest, according to an Aug. 14 Public Works Department report to the county Board of Supervisors.
Though county officials expect combined sewer costs to be about $200 a month, they explained in their report to supervisors that the costs could vary between $100 and $275.
That’s because the cost of construction would eventually depend on the technology and treatment plant site chosen, as well as methods of financing.
County officials also hope that state or federal grants or low-interest loans could lower the cost of the system. #
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/129364.html
GROUNDWATER CLEANUP:
Editorial: What's the delay? Clean up refinery pollution
"Pretty please" works well enough when you're asking for the last slice of pie. It's considerably less effective when you're trying to convince industry to undertake expensive and time-consuming clean-up efforts.
"Pretty please" just isn't good enough when your charge is protecting the public's drinking water. Few responsibilities could be greater. Yet, over the years, "pretty please" seems to have been the primary enforcement strategy employed by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board when it came to leaking contaminants at a
That strategy had to stop.
The regional water board has now issued a formal order requiring the current and past owners of the Big West Oil refinery on
It's about time. Where was the agency's order two decades ago when the first of these leaks was detected? Sidetracked by polite requests, apparently.
Letters between the water board and Shell, the refinery's former owner, are a study in comic ineffectiveness, with the board's strategy -- pushing for voluntary removal of soil contaminants, such as oil, gasoline, diesel, benzene and MTBE -- netting precious little in the way of meaningful action.
In one instance, Shell, and not the water board, was allowed to set its own deadlines for restarting a treatment system that had been shut down. The company missed all three of its self-imposed deadlines, with no apparent consequences.
City officials say some of the leakage could contaminate public drinking water supplies, including a
State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, has now jumped into the fray, asking Attorney General Jerry Brown to take legal action against Shell. Brown's office is studying the situation.
Water board officials say neither The Californian's investigation nor Florez's involvement were factors in the recent decision to toughen up, but the coincidental timing of the twin spotlights and the board's subsequent baring of its regulatory teeth make that position a little hard to believe.
Kern County Deputy District Attorney John Mitchell has seen the board in action several times over the years, most memorably when he was prosecuting the now-defunct Sunland Refinery for numerous groundwater violations. He discovered the water board had been writing letters to the refinery for more than 10 years asking that management take action, with no meaningful results.
Water board officials have complained that they are too understaffed to aggressively pursue polluters. But Florez said he could find no evidence of agency officials asking for significant staffing help. The water board, Florez said in his letter to Brown, "has a history of inaction." Pamela Creedon, the board's top officer since early 2006, disputes that characterization and promises more aggressive action. Good.
The board's past approach can't continue. It's been well documented that
http://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/editorials/story/224216.html
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