Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 12, 2009
4. Water Quality –
EPA chemical database rules a political hazard, critics say
Superfund money to clean 'mouth of the beast'
EPA proposes $36-million cleanup of waters off Palos Verdes
Southern Marin sewage agency fined over spill
Marin Independent Journal
EPA seeks public input on offshore pesticide cleanup
Canadian city to stop dumping untreated sewage
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EPA chemical database rules a political hazard, critics say
Obama has invited politics into scientific task to update the catalog and assess the danger of industrial chemicals, some say.
By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration promised to end political meddling in scientific decisions, but some critics say the White House botched an early test on a key question of public health: how to assess the danger of industrial chemicals.
At issue is a government catalog of toxic substances that guides regulators, industries and the public on the dangers posed by certain chemicals. Environmentalists think the hazards should be assessed solely by scientists free from political influence.
But guidelines issued by the Environmental Protection Agency last month carve out a role for "White House officials" -- which could give presidential aides the ability to influence scientific deliberations.
Critics blame the George W. Bush administration for undermining the EPA's toxic chemical database by delaying the process and injecting its policy preferences.
The database, known as the Integrated Risk Information System, was created in 1985 to provide regulators with reliable scientific information on the risks of exposure. It covers more than 500 chemicals that could affect public health -- including dioxin, perchlorate and formaldehyde.
The Obama administration says the new rules simply allow White House scientists to contribute to the discussion.
But critics say they had hoped President Obama would do more.
"Instead of leaving scientists free to do their work, the Obama administration has invited interference from people interested in politics and economics," said Rena Steinzor, a law professor and chairwoman of the Center for Progressive Reform, which issued a report about the database this week. "The Obama White House has just provided a back door for special-interest obstruction."
"Why would they want to politicize it that way?" asked Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity program with the Union of Concerned Scientists, which had criticized the Bush administration's use of science and has generally lauded Obama's approach.
House and Senate Democrats, including California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who leads the Environment and Public Works Committee, are requesting clarification of the role Obama aides might play in evaluating chemical hazards.
"The ultimate question is whether EPA scientists are controlling this or whether it's the political guys" at the White House, said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), chairman of a House science subcommittee.
But Miller and Boxer said that, overall, they were pleased with Obama's rules on the catalog of chemicals. The guidelines, issued May 20, were designed to speed the updating of the database and to require more transparency.
A report released Thursday by Miller’s subcommittee charged that, largely because of political influence during the Bush administration, the database had been damaged. The listings do not provide basic information about some of the most common chemical-related health threats, the report says.
The study by the Center for Progressive Reform, a nonprofit that works on health and environmental issues, found that the database lacked current information on a majority of hazardous pollutants, even those Congress identified for quick regulatory action in 1990 -- nearly 20 years ago.
Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office listed White House interference among the factors hampering regulation of toxic chemicals.
John D. Graham, who led the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President George W. Bush, disputed those conclusions. In an e-mail exchange this week, he said flawed EPA scientific protocols deserved a good part of the blame for the delays.
A spokesman for the Obama White House, Kenneth Baer, said the new rules provided transparency as well as a timetable for completing assessments of chemicals. The rules, he said, simply allow scientists, even those in the White House, to contribute to the discussion.
"The rule refers to White House staff who have scientific credentials," he said. Besides, he said, "their comments will be made public. So there is a level of transparency that will guard against the type of outcomes the critics are worried about."#
Superfund money to clean 'mouth of the beast'
Peter Fimrite
Rick Sugarek knows not to splash through the puddles inside "the mouth of the beast."
That is what he calls the gaping wound near
The project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency said he once dropped a pen in some running water inside the mine and when he recovered it, it was coated in copper. The water is so acidic that droplets eat holes in blue jeans and dissolve the stitching on boots, much like battery acid.
Sugarek stood Thursday in a shaft once known as the Richmond Mine. It is the source of the toxic stew that has polluted the Sacramento River and its tributaries for more than a century, killed thousands of fish and turned a once-majestic mountain into a hellish breeding ground for nasty bacterial slime that helps create what geologists say is the "world's worst water."
But on this day Sugarek was full of hope, despite the dismal surroundings. The EPA was recently awarded $20.7 million in federal stimulus funds to clean up the heavy metals that have flowed into and accumulated at the bottom of the Keswick Reservoir for decades, threatening fish if not people. Sugarek said the metals have settled to the bottom and do not affect the quality of the drinking water.
The money, combined with $10 million already budgeted for the project, will pay for construction of three pumping stations, piping and the hydraulic dredging of the 170,000 cubic yards of fine toxic metals that to this day coat the bottom of the Spring Creek arm of the reservoir.
Separating out the solids
"What we're trying to deal with now is the 50 years of stuff that has accumulated at the bottom of the reservoir since it was built," said Sugarek, who has been working at the Toxic Superfund site for 20 years. "This is an important management area for
Sugarek said the idea is to clean up the site, not restore the ecosystem, so other areas are not contaminated. He said a storm could stir up the sludge in reservoir. The plan then is to dredge the area over the next 18 months, pump the fine sediments up to a treatment center that will separate out the solids. The toxic sediments will then be dried out and dumped into a 12-acre pit on nearby federal land. The pit will be lined with thick plastic sheets and then covered and planted over.
Prospecting in 1860s
The work is expected to employ as many as 300 people over three years. In the end, Sugarek hopes, the threat to waterways, including the
The trouble began in the 1860s when gold and silver prospectors first discovered the mountain, about 9 miles northwest of
Poisonous runoff
The real damage began when a company called Mountain Copper took over the 4,400-acre mine in the 1890s and began to supply sulfuric acid to refineries in the Bay Area. At the turn of the century, it was the largest copper mine in
Much of the work on the Richmond Mine occurred during World War II, leaving the entire mountain scarred.
The mining operation turned to rubble what was originally a 200-foot-thick by 3,000-foot-long underground deposit of pyrite, exposing it to oxygen, water and bacteria that combined to create the poisonous runoff. Water that flowed out of the shaft where the pyrite lay formed bluish blocks of acid salt, which deer sometimes used as salt licks.
The Bureau of Reclamation built an earthen dam in 1963 to block the steady flow of sludge, but it would often overflow during heavy winter rains and the copper and metals would get into the
The mine was finally abandoned in 1966 and collapsed in on itself shortly after that. The problem, it seemed, only got worse.
Lethal blend of copper, iron
Tens of thousands of fish have been killed since then. By the time the EPA took over management of the area in the 1980s, a ton of acidic water and heavy metals a day were flowing into the river, Sugarek said. The water in the debris dam was blood red from a mixture of iron and copper.
Desperate, the EPA built the Slick Rock Creek Retention Dam in 2004, which captured 98 percent of the sludge. The sludge is dried and dumped in the open pit mine on top of the mountain. Now the EPA is concentrating on the leftover mess.
But money cannot completely resolve the problem. Researchers recently found six unique strains of bacteria that live in a bed of pink slime that is part of a little-understood biochemical cycle that devours iron, produces sulfuric acid, and creates a nightmarish broth of copper, zinc and arsenic. That toxic broth will continue pouring out of the mine forever, or until someone figures out a way to neutralize the chemical and biological reactions, scientists say.
"We spent a good deal of time trying to see if we could shut it down, and our conclusion was that we couldn't," said Sugarek, adding that the only hope is for some future innovation or new technology. "We know we can continue what we are doing for 100 years. The estimate is that it will take the mountain about 3,000 years to use up all the pyrite."
The damp, dark passage where Sugarek stood Thursday was nothing compared with the hellish alien environment deeper inside the mine. There, chemical reactions drive temperatures up to 130 degrees, the water is almost pure sulfuric acid, and stalactites and stalagmites of acid salt cover the walls.
Dissolving aluminum, skin
"If you go back 1,500 feet, the temperature is 100 degrees, you start to see the acid salts and it smells like sulfur," Sugarek said. "You don't want to use an aluminum ladder because it will just dissolve."
A NASA scientist once sent a robot into the bowels of the mine. It did not return, Sugarek said. Nobody that he knows of has been killed, but Sugarek said a worker testing the water above the debris dam suffered "some exfoliation of the skin" after his rubber raft was punctured and he was forced to swim to safety.
Little help from owner
The elderly owner of the property, Ted Arman, who bought the 3,500-foot mountain from the last mining company for $100,000, has not been much help, proposing a resumption of mining in addition to construction of a 200-foot-tall marble statue of Jesus Christ.
Sugarek said rockslides and dam failures are still concerns.
"We have shut the leak off," he said. "What we're worried about is that a discharge from the debris dam during a big storm could cause an environmental disaster."#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/11/MN9Q185QAK.DTL&feed=rss.news
EPA proposes $36-million cleanup of waters off Palos Verdes
Jeff Gottlieb
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed spending at least $36 million to clean up the world’s largest deposit of the banned pesticide DDT, located 200 feet underwater off the coast of the
Montrose Chemical Corp., which was based near
Chemical companies, including Montrose Chemical Corp., which manufactured the DDT, agreed to pay a total of $73 million in 2000 to help restore the ocean environment.
The total settlement of $145 million was one of the largest payments ever for a natural resource case.#
Southern Marin sewage agency fined over spill
By Kelly Zito
A Southern Marin County sewer agency faces a $332,000 fine from state regulators who say the district spilled more than three-fourths of a million gallons of bacteria-laden wastewater into
The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, overseen by the California Environmental Protection Agency, said a ruptured underwater pipe at the Sausalito-Marin City Sanitary District's
In August 2008, a blocked sewer line resulted in the release of 9,000 gallons of raw sewage into
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/06/12/state/n062929D17.DTL
Marin Independent Journal-6/11/09
By Mark Prado
The Sausalito-Marin City Sanitary District faces $332,000 in fines for three spills of more than 775,000 gallons of sewage, the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board announced Thursday.
The sanitary district has 30 days to respond to the proposed fine. It could have the fine reduced if it can present evidence to show the spill could not be avoided. If the district waives its right to a hearing within 90 days on the issue, it could attempt to negotiate the fine with the district.
"We have to take a look at the complaint in detail," said Bob Simmons, sewer district manager. "A fine of this size would hurt and we are still spending money to make improvements."
The district spilled 766,700 gallons of partially treated wastewater gushed into the bay between Feb. 15 and 21 after an underwater pipe at the district's Fort Baker Wastewater Treatment Plant burst. The break was caused corrosion which led to a rupture in an underwater pipe joint. The wastewater had been treated to remove trash and large solids, but did not receive disinfection prior to spilling into the bay.
"There should have been regular inspections of the pipe especially because it is near the water line," said Lila Tang, wastewater control division chief for the water quality control board. "The pipe should have lasted another 25 years, but there was corrosion that could have been seen."
The same line broke again on Feb. 27 when a contractor broke a pipe joint in the same pipe while
grading the shoreline. That resulted in 2,700 gallons of sewage being spilled.
The district also discharged 9,000 gallons of raw sewage from its sanitary sewer collection system to Swede's Beach on Aug. 10, 2008. All three spills caused beaches to close.
The Aug. 10, 2008 incident occurred when a sewer line became blocked with rags and other debris after the district failed to fully open a sluice gate. The overflow resulted in the release of 9,000 gallons of raw sewage into the bay.
"We have made repairs to all the pipes, and there is a new policy in place for the sluice gate," Simmons said. "We have addressed the problems."
The Sausalito-Marin City Sanitary District, which serves about 18,000 people in Southern Marin, is not the only agency facing problems.
After inspections in late 2007, then high-profile spills by the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin in January 2008, the EPA ordered several Southern Marin sewage agencies as well as the city of
http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_12573114?IADID=Search-www.marinij.com-www.marinij.com
EPA seeks public input on offshore pesticide cleanup
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will seek public comment this month on a proposed $36 million plan to clean a massive deposit of pesticide-contaminated sediment off the
The operation is part of a $73 million legal settlement reached in 2000 between the government and four firms that ran or operated a DDT plant in Harbor Gateway and flushed hundreds of tons of the pesticide into the ocean.
According to the EPA, the contaminated area stretches from Point Fermin to the
The EPA's proposed cleanup plan involves the construction of a "containment cap," which would take about three years.
Three meetings will be held:
2 p.m. June 23 at
6 p.m. June 24 at Banning's Landing, 100 E. Water St.,
6 p.m. June 25 at Palos Verdes Library,
The EPA's plan and supporting documents can be viewed at the Redondo Beach Public Library,
More information is also available at www.epa.gov/region09/superfund/pvshelf.#
http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_12571746?IADID=Search-www.dailybreeze.com-www.dailybreeze.com
Canadian city to stop dumping untreated sewage
By Phuong Le
For years, the
The resulting bad publicity stood in contrast to the city of prim and proper homes, shops, gardens and tea rooms worthy of its royal namesake.
But leaders of both Victoria and Vancouver, 70 miles away, hope the political tension caused by the sewage will be solved as
Regional politicians last week approved a $1.2 billion plan to build four treatment plants to handle about 34 million gallons of raw sewage that Victoria and six suburbs pump into the Strait of Juan de Fuca each day.
The strait separates the island from
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Environmentalists say untreated sewage contains toxic chemicals, heavy metals and other contaminants that pollute waters and harm aquatic life. But others in the
The sewage has been an ongoing saga in the region over the years. Efforts to shame politicians into adopting sewage treatment were marked by a humorous yet failed attempt by Mr. Floatie—the 7-foot-tall brown-clad mascot for People Opposed to Outfall Pollution, better known as POOP—to run for mayor of Victoria.
Finally, in 2006, the
The province also released a report that found contamination of the seabed at outfalls, where the sewer pipes drain.
"Since then, it's been, 'How do we move ahead?'" said Andy Orr, a spokesman for Capital Regional District, the government for 13 municipalities on the southern end of
Last week, the capital district's sewage committee voted to build four plants in Esquimalt, Saanich East, the
Sewage from the
Some believe the plants will do little good. "There's no measurable public health risks," said Dr. Shaun Peck, a former CRD medical health officer and member of Responsible Sewage Treatment Victoria, citing monitoring studies of the sites.
But environmentalists believe it's important to take a stand against sewage now.
"We're slowly, along with other pressures, changing what's happening in our environment," said Christianne Wilhelmson, with the Georgia Strait Alliance, which has pushed for sewage treatment for years. "Once you cross that line, it's going to be too late."#
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12576570?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
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