[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY - 2/8/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

February 8, 2008

 

4. Water Quality

 

MOTHBALL FLEET REMOVAL:

Mothball fleet fate afloat - Vacaville Reporter

 

HARD WATER ISSUES:

Harder water coming out county residents' faucets - San Diego Union Tribune

 

GROUNDWATER ISSUES:

Contamination probe coming to a head - Eureka Times Standard

 

 

MOTHBALL FLEET REMOVAL:

Mothball fleet fate afloat

Vacaville Reporter – 2/8/08

By Sara Stroud, staff writer

 

Fishermen, environmentalists, former shipbuilders and area lawmakers gathered Thursday to discuss what should be done with 74 aged and deteriorating naval ships at rest in Suisun Bay.

 

State Sen. Patricia Wiggins led the meeting about the vessels - collectively known as the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, or mothball fleet - which are reportedly sloughing toxic materials into the bay's delicate ecosystem.

 

"The hulls are stuck in a bureaucratic mess and pose an increasing threat to the entire San Francisco Bay and Delta," Wiggins said. They're a "melting toxic mess" that could "affect the bay's health for generations to come."

 

Also at the meeting were representatives for U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Solano, and Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Solano, as well as Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson.

 

State environmental and water agencies are mired in a controversy with the federal Maritime Administration over how to remove the ships from the bay for dismantling.

 

One option is to tow them thousands of miles for dismantling in Texas. Coast Guard regulations, however, require the hulls to be cleaned of any native organisms before they are moved into the ocean. The process of cleaning the hulls in the water would deposit more pollutants into the bay, experts say.

 

Bruce Wolfe, executive officer of San Francisco Bay Area Water Board, said he believes the best choice would be to drydock the ships and have them cleaned and taken apart locally.

 

Representatives from Allied Defense Recycling, a Mare Island Company, said they could get rid of all the mothballed ships within seven years at local dry docks.

 

Two citizen environmental groups have sued the Maritime Administration. Spokespeople from both the Natural Resources Defense Council and San Francisco Baykeeper decried the polluting ships at Thursday's meeting.

 

Commercial fishermen voiced concerns about threats the fleet's pollution could pose to their livelihoods, while recreational fishermen spoke about their fears of toxins in the ecosystem.

 

Wiggins, who chairs the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, will discuss what she learned from the meeting with fellow legislators, her press secretary, David Miller, said.  #

http://www.thereporter.com//ci_8206399?IADID=Search-www.thereporter.com-www.thereporter.com

 

 

HARD WATER ISSUES:

Harder water coming out county residents' faucets

San Diego Union Tribune – 2/8/08

By Mike Lee, staff writer

 

It's not your imagination: Your hair could be a bit harder to lather with shampoo and your dishwasher may leave more spots on the glasses.

 

And take note if you home-brew beer.

 

The county is increasing its reliance on water from the Colorado River, and that waterway carries high levels of dissolved magnesium, calcium and other minerals. The result is “harder water” coming out of your faucets and shower heads.

 

“We are going from hard water to slightly harder water,” said Dana Chapin, a water quality expert for the city of San Diego.

 

Don't worry too much about the change. Water experts said an uptick in trace elements might be a nuisance, but it doesn't create health problems and won't dramatically alter the taste of tap water.

 

Customers typically prefer “soft water.” Compared with the mineral-laden version, it leaves less residue in pipes, tea pots, water heaters and elsewhere.

 

The “hard to harder” shift has taken place in recent weeks, as San Diego County and the rest of Southern California started buying more water from the Colorado River because of restrictions on moving water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

 

The Colorado waterway has “harder” water than the delta, a characteristic that has been magnified by a multiyear drought in the Colorado basin. San Diego County's water is a blend of both sources.

 

Residential and industrial water customers may notice the altered blend through various means, such as a greater amount of whitish deposits left on vehicles after they are washed, said Debra Man, assistant general manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles. The agency is a wholesale supplier for water districts throughout Southern California.

 

Arian Collins, a spokesman for the San Diego Water Department, downplayed the significance of the higher mineral content. That's partly because the region used to draw similar amounts of water from the Colorado River.

 

“This is not unprecedented,” Collins said. “The levels of hardness will be what they were in 2003 and earlier.” #

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080208-9999-1m8hard.html

 

 

GROUNDWATER ISSUES:

Contamination probe coming to a head

Eureka Times Standard – 2/8/08

By John Driscoll, staff writer

 

EUREKA -- Soil and groundwater contamination from the site of a former gas station and dry cleaner in Henderson Center is being investigated this week to determine the extent of the pollution and how it might be cleaned up.

 

Depending on the results, the city could be partially on the hook for a cleanup that could cost millions. It has already run up to $125,000 for consulting and legal fees to avoid that.

 

West Environmental Services has been drilling near Grotto and E streets since Monday, boring test holes to detect potent toxins. The contractor for Norman's Dry Cleaners and Laundry is looking for contamination from a dry cleaning agent it no longer uses, and for petroleum pollution left over from the Unocal Corp. gas station that occupied the site in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

”We're delineating what the extent is and will be working on technologies to address the issue,” West Environmental geologist Peter Morris said at the site.

 

It's part of a cleanup ordered by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board in 2003. Unocal -- now owned by Chevron -- ran a gas station at the site from 1964 to 1979. It had two 10,000-gallon underground fuel tanks removed sometime during that period.

 

KFD Enterprises Inc. bought the property in 1979 and built the dry cleaning facility. From 1980 to 1984 Norman's Dry Cleaners used a cleaning solvent called tetrachloroethene, or PCE, and disposed of filters and waste in a trash bin behind the building. Since then, the filters and waste have been transported and recycled by Safety Kleen Corp., according to the water board order.

 

In 1998, testing to looking for contamination began, leading to a series of investigations. Both PCE and its chemical relatives TCE and DCE, along with benzenes and xylenes and other contaminants were found. PCE was found in very high levels in some places. In 2000, Unocal assumed responsibility for testing for petroleum byproducts.

 

The discharges were considered a threat to water quality in the area, enough for the water board to say it poses a threat to public health. Investigations in April 2007 found the vapor form of the most potent pollutants are limited to E Street to the west and Grotto Street to the north, where no residences are located.

 

”Initial exposure assessment indicates no threat to human receptors, such as people who may work in that area,” according to a water board notice.

 

The board in 2003 ordered Norman's to do the cleanup, and later named Chevron as a responsible party. But West Environmental's June 2007 report said that an investigation of the city's sewer lines in the area found them to be cracked and in bad repair, and could have leaked some of the contaminants the dry cleaners dumped into the sewer system in the 1980s. The water board staff is now waiting for the complete results before they recommend whether Eureka should be liable for a portion of the cleanup.

 

”The idea is to identify all known and suspected sources of contamination,” said Dave Parson, an engineering geologist with the water board. “The city sewers are just a suspected source.”

 

The city has strongly opposed being named as one of the dischargers. City Attorney Sheryl Schaffner said that the sewer lines are well maintained, and that either way their condition now would be different than they were 20 years ago, when some less concentrated chemicals were dumped into the sewer line.

 

”There's nothing showing that there are cracks in the city's lines and that anything has escaped from the city's lines,” Schaffner said.

 

PCE is heavier than water and can settle to the bottom of a sewer line, where it can leak through joints and cracks, according to a 1992 study by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.

 

The city's liability or lack of liability is key. Eureka's insurance policy has a pollution exemption, and wouldn't cover the costs of a clean up. How the water board might decide whether Eureka is responsible hinges on case law that is split: Mostly in favor of cities in similar situations, but not entirely.

 

Eureka consultant Russell Juncal of Ground Zero Analysis, Inc. has criticized the investigation to date, saying the history of handling and disposal of hazardous substances, including the fate of 20 gallons of pure PCE once released, have been largely ignored, as has contamination under the building's slab.

 

Norman's attorney Jan Greben said that sometimes litigation is necessary in such situations, which he said aren't black and white. He said he hopes negotiations are successful.

 

”I think that reasonable people can work this out,” Greben said.

 

Greben's firm has broad experience in ground water contamination, especially cases related to dry cleaning.

 

Once the full scope of the contamination is understood and all the responsible parties are identified, Parson said, the board's staff will collect all of the available information, then file a report and recommendations with the board.

 

Several cleanup technologies will be considered to clean up the area, Parson said, and one could be chosen as soon as 2009.

 

A number of notices and documents are available through the water board on the web at http://rb-case-1nhu630.com/.  #

http://www.times-standard.com//ci_8204686?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com

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