Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
November 27, 2007
4. Water Quality
PERCHLORATE:
Talks begin on perchlorate plume - Riverside Press Enterprise
Closed-door water talks frustrate Rialto council - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Editorial: Stop the plume's spread ... now -
PERCHLORATE:
Talks begin on perchlorate plume
Riverside Press
By Jennifer Bowles and Mary Bender, staff writers
Settlement talks have started in the Inland region's largest unabated groundwater pollution case, officials said Monday.
Three companies accused of contributing to perchlorate pollution over the past 55 years in Rialto and Colton have agreed to hold confidential talks for the next 60 days with officials of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Riverside-based regulator.
Since 2002, the board has been trying to find those responsible for perchlorate pollution in order to prompt a cleanup of the 6-mile-long plume that has tainted more than a dozen drinking wells that serve the two cities.
Kurt Berchtold, the board's assistant executive officer, said confidentiality is typical.
"That is standard in any settlement process, for the purposes of encouraging a free discussion," he said.
Because the talks are confidential, Berchtold said he couldn't reveal much other than that they're aimed at "resolving the underlying environmental claims."
He said any proposed settlement would be presented for public review.
The case has been delayed for several years and the companies -- Goodrich Corp., its parent company Black and Decker, and Pyro Spectaculars, a fireworks company -- recently asked a Superior Court judge in
The hearing was to determine whether the three companies are responsible for the pollution. The chemical used in fireworks and rocket fuel has been linked to thyroid illnesses.
The companies argued the state agency is biased and shouldn't hear the case. All parties agreed last Wednesday to continue that hearing until Jan. 29 to launch the settlement talks, Berchtold said.
On Monday, the city of
"This letter is to ask you to intervene and order the Regional Board staff to allow the city of
Last week, the Rialto City Council declared a local emergency over the contamination, hoping to get state government help in the cleanup.
"The 60-day delay the Regional Board staff has agreed to will cost our city about 720 million gallons of fresh water -- in the middle of one of the worst droughts in decades," the letter said.
"It's $1 million to put the treatment on (each well), and $500,000 to $750,000 a year to keep it up," Hanson said. #
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_perc27.328b4a9.html
Closed-door water talks frustrate
By Jason Pesick, staff writer
The city, which wrote a strongly worded letter Monday to the state's Environmental Protection Agency headquarters complaining about the insider talks, views the negotiations as a slap in its face.
It wants to be at the table on the talks to clean up industrial chemicals discharged in its northern section because it did a lion's share of the legwork to build a legal case against the companies.
The three companies accused of contaminating a 160-acre site in Rialto are Goodrich, Emhart - a defunct division of Black & Decker - and Rialto-based fireworks company Pyro Spectaculars.
The purpose of the letter on Monday was to request that state EPA Secretary Linda Adams order the local water board to open the door to city officials on the talks with the companies.
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"I think it's totally ridiculous," said Scott, a member of the council's perchlorate subcommittee.
"Why are they doing it behind closed doors? It makes no sense to me," he said.
Scott suggested that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should dissolve the regional board.
The staff of the local water agency - called the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board - and lawyers for the companies, recently agreed to negotiate a possible settlement.
"The parties have agreed to enter settlement discussions," said Bob Wyatt, a lawyer for Emhart.
The two sides only agreed to talk recently after a court hearing was put off last week that would have examined whether public hearings could proceed on who was responsible for the pollution.
"We are seeking a settlement that achieves cleanup of the perchlorate and TCE contamination ... (flowing down from) the 160-acre site," said Gerard Thibeault, the Santa Ana board's executive officer, referring to the Riverside-based Santa Ana board's recent cleanup efforts.
TCE, or trichloroethylene, is a solvent used in various industrial cleaning products.
Perchlorate, used to produce explosives like rocket fuel and fireworks, is flowing through
Perchlorate can be harmful to humans by interfering with the thyroid gland, which plays a role in metabolism and neurological development.
The state umbrella group that oversees the
But before the hearings could start, the companies filed lawsuits saying that the state board process was flawed and asked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs to keep the hearings from getting off the ground.
Janavs halted the hearing process. On Nov. 1, she consolidated the companies' lawsuits into one and made it clear that no matter what she decides, someone will appeal the case, likely up to the California Supreme Court.
On Nov. 21, the two sides - the companies versus the regional and state water boards, which are represented by the
"We can only hope that the regional board staff is going to obtain the emergency cleanup that this community needs," said Bob Owen,
Scott said at the next council meeting on Dec. 4, he hopes the council will vote to recommend Schwarzenegger ask the EPA to declare the 160-acre site a Superfund site.
Also on Wednesday, Thibeault ordered Ken Thompson, who owns land above the McLaughlin Pit, which is a major source of perchlorate contamination, to conduct a soil and groundwater investigation. #
Editorial: Stop the plume's spread ... now
OUR VIEW:
For
Not that the city hasn't been trying to get help in its quest to clean up the groundwater. But those efforts haven't yielded much, so now
Rialto City Council declared a state of emergency last week to deal with the city's dwindling supply of water. The council hopes that move will be a precursor to a similar declaration by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which could make state funds available to help clean up the perchlorate.
Also last week, Councilman Ed Scott said he was inviting a federal Environmental Protection Agency official to come to
Until recently, Scott, a member of the City Council's perchlorate subcommittee, has opposed a Superfund designation for
Saying that state agencies have thus far failed the city in its efforts to clean up the toxic underground plumes, Scott said he would ask his fellow council members to vote on asking the governor's office to request that the 160-acre site in northern Rialto be considered for a Superfund cleanup.
That's the right course of action at this point. Rialto has spent more than $13.5 million on legal fees, but the city's every thrust has been parried in court by the corporations that Rialto claims are responsible for the pollution; the legal fight drags on with one court delay after another.
Meanwhile, the perchlorate relentlessly moves "downstream" in its underground plumes.
That's the crux of the matter after all: The contamination must be cleaned up and the spread of perchlorate stopped. The legal wrangling over who ultimately pays how much may drag on for years - the estimates for cleanup costs run as high as $300 million - but the cleanup itself ought to start now.
The EPA should be able to help. Wayne Praskins, a Superfund project manager whom Scott hopes to bring to
We'd like to see the governor declare an emergency and the U.S. EPA get involved as soon as possible. The city discussed a possible state of emergency and a request for $23 million in state cleanup funds in September. City officials met with Praskins about EPA involvement back in August.
Sure, there's a federal lawsuit scheduled for October, but that's when it might start - who knows how long it could drag on.
In the meantime,
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