[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERQUALITY-10/3/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

October 3, 2008

 

4. Water Quality -

 

 

Residents oppose Aerojet well to track tainted water

Sacramento Bee

 

Drug disposal sites few in Valley

Opportunities to properly discard prescription drugs, needles locally are rare.

Fresno Bee

 

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Residents oppose Aerojet well to track tainted water

Sacramento Bee – 10/2/08

By Ramon Coronado, staff writer

 

Plans to drill a well in Fair Oaks to monitor a plume of contaminated groundwater migrating from Aerojet's Rancho Cordova rocket-engine facility have stalled over residents' objections.

 

"We won't be drilling in seven days," Aerojet's Timothy Murphy told the sometimes angry and loud crowd who attended a community meeting Wednesday night.

The meeting was hosted by the Fair Oaks Water District and Aerojet to inform area residents of the planned well at Park Avenue and Winding Way, a rural, residential area.

To serve as a monitoring well, the drilling site needs to be at a leading edge of the plume that has migrated under the American River and is advancing on Fair Oaks and Carmichael 250 feet underground.

 

The well is planned as part of Aerojet's $1.2 billion Superfund site cleanup of the rocket fuel contamination from its Rancho Cordova site.

 

If the monitoring well later is installed and confirms the edge of the plume, another well will be drilled next to it to extract the contaminated water and pipe it back underground to an Aerojet water treatment facility in Rancho Cordova.

 

County, state and federal regulators, who attended the meeting, have said the plume is about 2 miles wide and traveling, on average, about 500 feet a year.

The plume also appears headed toward a drinking well about a mile away. The Fair Oaks Water District drilled the well several years ago for water storage.

Aerojet postponed its plans for the monitoring well, which would have been located in a road right of way on county property, after residents objected to it being drilled in their neighborhood.

 

"We will explore options. We will evaluate the sites," Murphy said of at least two nearby locations suggested by the residents.

Murphy is the director of public affairs for GenCorp Inc., the parent company of Aerojet.

No timetable was set, and Murphy said there would be another community meeting on the issue.#

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1284993.html

 

Drug disposal sites few in Valley

Opportunities to properly discard prescription drugs, needles locally are rare.

Fresno Bee – 10/3/08

By Barbara Anderson

 

 

Across the state, communities are opening disposal sites where people can drop off their unused medicines instead of flushing them down the drain.

But not in most of the central San Joaquin Valley.

 

A Tulare County disposal site in Visalia is the only Valley location that will accept medicine for disposal during a statewide "No Drugs Down the Drain" event Saturday through Oct. 11. And the Visalia location is open only on Saturdays.

 

Fresno and Kings counties accept medications a few times a year, but not next week. Madera County doesn't dispose of drugs at its site.

Tossing old pills out with household trash -- a less environmentally friendly disposal method -- may be the best Valley residents can do. But even that's better than flushing them.

 

Landfills have been the default choice for disposing household hazardous wastes in the Valley, which has been slow to open permanent disposal sites for paint, batteries and other common trash.

 

Keith Quinlan, solid waste manager for Madera County, suggests that people hold on to expired and used medicines "if you can do that in a safe manner until there is a collection, recycling event or proper disposal system in place."

 

It's important to stop flushing drugs, organizers of the "No Drugs Down the Drain" event say, because traces of birth-control pills, antibiotics and other medicines are finding their way into surface water.

 

A 2002 sample of 139 streams in 30 states found 80% had measurable concentrations of prescription and nonprescription drugs, according to a U.S. Geological Survey.

 

So far, there's no evidence that the drug residue is causing human health problems. In ocean fish, however, researchers have observed changes in the gender balance and male fish with female characteristics. While nobody is sure why, it warrants concern, said Phil Bobel, who works for the Palo Alto wastewater treatment plant. Bobel is a "No Drugs Down the Drain" organizer.

 

"It can't be good that we're finding these chemicals around, even if they're not at levels of concern for humans yet," he said.

The city of Fresno did a one-time sampling of ground water near its wastewater treatment plant in 2004. The laboratory was unable to detect anything, said Stephen Hogg, the city's assistant director of public utilities.

 

Bobel said the purpose of the "No Drugs Down the Drain" event is not to alarm people, but to inform them of the proper way to dispose of medications.

Nobody knows how many pills would be taken to Valley disposal sites, but 300 to 400 pounds of pills are dropped off each month at a disposal site in Palo Alto, a Bay Area city of about 50,000, Bobel said.

 

Starting next year, it will be illegal to dump old medicine in landfills in California. That means county disposal sites are more likely to start accepting them.

Meanwhile, people can wait months for a collection event only to find they can't get rid of medications. And not all disposal sites take used needles and syringes. A state law that took effect in September makes it illegal to throw away needles and syringes with household trash.

 

Fresno County is working on the problem, said Leslie Kline, the county's recycling coordinator. A location at Vine and Elm avenues for a permanent household hazardous waste disposal site has been identified, she said. Fifteen cities and the county are involved in the venture, she said. "It's not cost-effective for a small community to hire a contractor. That's why we've been doing these kind of programs on a regional basis. Our hope and aspirations are that we'll be able to provide a lot more service in the future."

 

Tulare County residents can drop off medications at the Visalia disposal site at 335 N. Cain St. from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. The site does not dispose of narcotics. #

http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/911764.html

 

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