Health probe started in Rialto water contamination

10:00 PM PST on Wednesday, December 2, 2009
By JANET ZIMMERMAN
The Press-Enterprise
The state is combing old water records to determine whether highly contaminated groundwater — which now stretches for miles from an industrial site in Rialto — caused illnesses among residents in the many decades before it was discovered, health officials said during a community meeting Wednesday night.
In 1997, three wells were found to have high levels of perchlorate, an ingredient in rocket fuel, and trichloroethylene, or TCE, an industrial solvent, which seeped into the soil and underground water. Water was not tested for perchlorate before then.
The source is a 160-acre site north of Interstate 210, between Alder and Locust avenues, where private companies and government agencies stored, tested and manufactured munitions, rocket motors and fireworks.
It is the Inland region’s largest uncontrolled plume of perchlorate in a drinking-water supply.
Investigations began in 2001 but were stalled by legal challenges by former users of the site. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stepped in, and the site was placed on the Superfund priority list for cleanup in September. The declaration frees up money to clean up the site.
Officials from the EPA and the state held a community meeting on the cleanup Wednesday night at the Rialto Senior Center.
“You did get exposed. That’s what we’re trying to get a handle on — how often and how long,” Marilyn Underwood, a toxicologist with the state Department of Public Health, told an audience of more than two dozen people. “I think the good news is … it seems like it happened for a fairly restricted time.”
The challenge is tracking problems that may have occurred more than a decade ago, she said. Comments from the community will be part of the assessment.
The three wells were used intermittently and, when they were used, were mixed with water from other sources that would have diluted the chemicals, she said.
Perchlorate can disrupt the thyroid gland’s ability to absorb iodide, needed to make the hormones that guide brain and nerve development of fetuses and babies.
TCE can damage the nervous system, liver and lungs, according to the EPA.
Wayne Praskins, who is managing the project for the EPA, stressed that there are no immediate health threats and that drinking water is safe.
Some contaminated wells have been closed; others had elaborate treatment systems installed. In the past year, the EPA has spent more than $2 million to install a network of more than 30 monitoring wells to track the movement of the contamination, Praskins said.
In all, the chemicals have tainted more than a dozen drinking water wells that serve Rialto and Colton. Plumes of the contamination appear to be headed toward wells owned by the city of Riverside.
“We’re not sure what path it’s taking,” he said. “Our plan will be to intercept those plumes.”
Longtime Rialto resident Patricia Robinson said she worries about the effect on her children, ages 27 and 29, who grew up drinking the water. Neither of them has been sick, she said.
“I feel confident now, how they’re handling it. It was all the years before that I worry about,” she said.
Robinson said her city of Rialto water bill includes a large “perchlorate charge” for the cleanup, even though city leaders have promised for years that it would be rebated.
The water most likely will be pumped out of the ground and treated, but it will take decades to eliminate the toxic chemicals from groundwater, Praskins said.
The preliminary cleanup plan and health assessment are expected to be released next month. Information is available online at www.epa.gov/region09/bfgoodrich.

SB County submits permit-closure plan for contaminated Rialto site

FROM:

Josh Dulaney
San Bernardino Sun (CA)
September 8, 2998

RIALTO – The San Bernardino County Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill expansion on 20 acres in the north end of town remains a few years away as officials continue to study the extent of perchlorate contamination at a former hazardous waste storage and disposal site there. The Department of Toxic Substances Control is investigating the site at 2610 N. Alder Ave., once part of the 2,822-acre former Rialto Ammunition Back-Up Storage Point operated by the U.S. Army between 1941 and 1945, and taken over in 1966 by explosives manufacturer Broco, Inc.

According to the DTSC, before the county – which purchased the property in 1994 – moves forward with the expansion, it must meet requirements to discontinue a hazardous waste facility interim status permit granted to Broco in 1981.

Following a 1987 explosion at a nearby property, Broco moved north of the landfill without following protocol required under the permit, according to the DTSC.

For more info, click here.

Mid Valley Landfill Expansion Is It Really Safe?

Settlements and Verdicts Perchlorate Contamination

San Bernardino, CA: (Mar-04-08) The city of Rialto brought a lawsuit against San Bernardino County, alleging that chemicals, primarily perchlorate, contaminated the local water supply. Records show that Rialto sued the county as part of a 2004 federal lawsuit against more than 40 parties Rialto claimed was responsible for the contamination. The city sued the county again in 2006 at the height of the d.ispute between the two sides. Sources on both sides stated that the dispute had reached resolution and that the parties had agreed to a settlement.

Read more here

The City’s (Rialto CA) Perchlorate Clean-Up Plan

Rialto is ground zero for this plume of perchlorate contamination — one well with 10,000 ppb. (Remember, the Maximum Contaminant Level allowed in California is 6 ppb). Most wells in Rialto have two digit readings and several have three digit readings. Overall, perchlorate has been detected in 22 wells in and around the Rialto-Colton Groundwater Basin. This is one of the largest and most dense plumes in the United States. Rialto, like the surrounding water purveyors that also provide water to residents of Rialto, must serve clean, affordable, safe water. However the City of Rialto has another problem that is not shared by its neighboring water purveyors: as a general law city, Rialto is responsible for the health, safety and welfare of its residents and, as such, has a duty to do what it can to assure that the source of the contamination is fully remediated and the perchlorate is removed from the residents’ water basin forever at the expense of the polluters. The cost of such removal is currently estimated to be between $200 million and $300 million. It is Rialto’s goal that its ratepayers not be left with the responsibility to pay this massive clean-up cost.

To view the plan click here

Stop The Mid-Valley Landfill Expansion?

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Need a Better Reason Why?
Timely article by reporter Jason Pesick. Click Here This article raises a number of issues that should concern local citizens who receive their water from this area and is one of many that policy and decision makers in San Bernardino, Rialto, Fontana and Sacramento should read closely before even starting the discussion of landfill expansion.

Senator Feinstein Announces $6.5 Million for Perchlorate Cleanup

“This funding for perchlorate cleanup is badly needed to address this pervasive and dangerous problem that is leaking into the water supply and permeating the food chain,” Senator Feinstein said.

“The Department of Defense is the number one contributor to perchlorate contamination and cleanup of these sites is long over due. The costs to clean up perchlorate contamination are astronomical, reaching nearly $1 million in capital costs per drinking well and $500,000 in annual operating costs. This immense cost has been a barrier to the Defense Department’s cleanup of perchlorate and has also hurt local water districts dealing with the problem. This funding should help to bring down this cost and the aid the cleanup of this dangerous chemical.”

This seems like old news, so why is perchlorate still an issue?

To read more Click Here

Mid-Valley Landfill to shuffle garbage

By MARY BENDER
The Press-Enterprise

RIALTO – Garbage buried as long as 50 years ago will be dug up from a portion of Mid-Valley Landfill and moved to a newly excavated area at the site — part of a San Bernardino County plan to correct an environmental problem while adding trash-disposal capacity.

…”They didn’t quite know the effects on the environment, such as the type of things that we’re looking for now that potentially can cause contamination to the groundwater,” Rivera said.

view links for more info.