Looking to save money and adjust perchlorate water level limits to state standards, the Morgan Hill City Council last week voted to stop filtering the toxic salt out of municipal wells that have repeatedly tested below the level of 6 parts per billion.
As result, the Nordstrom Park Well, located along Nordstrom Avenue east of U.S. 101 and one of the city's five municipal wells outfitted with the costly ion exchange perchlorate removal system, will no longer have it. The city stands to save $267,000 per year, with the largest share coming from savings of more than $160,000 per year by no longer treating the Nordstrom Well, according to Public Works Director Jim Ashcraft's report to the council. Since less testing will be required, the cost of testing is predicted to decrease from $70,000 to $23,000 per year.
The council voted 4-1, with councilman Mark Grzan voting "no." He rejected the modifications to the city's perchlorate rules to reflect the state's levels and pointed out during discussion at the Dec. 19 council meeting that Massachusetts has adopted a 2 ppb limit for perchlorate water levels and the chemical is dangerous even if present in small amounts. At Nordstrom, concentration was measured below 4 ppb over the past three years.
"Perchlorate is a toxin," Grzan said at the meeting. "I don't see why we should settle for a lower-quality water supply."
Councilman Greg Sellers said he thought it wasn't the city's place to challenge the state perchlorate water level adopted by the state Department of Health Services in October.
"If we're going to say the state is wrong, we're going to be voting on the Iraq war next," Sellers said.
City Attorney Janet Kern weighed in to say it wasn't within the city council's "purview" to determine which perchlorate levels are suitable, because the state had the benefit of scientific research as a basis for its determination.
In addition to amending the city's treatment rules to reflect the state's 6 ppb perchlorate water level, through its vote the council also decided to shut off Tennant Well with the exception of the summer months, when water usage peaks, according a staff report provided to the council by Ashcraft.
Operating the well less means the city will halve the cost, from $120,000 to $60,000 per year.
The council's vote means the city will remove a perchlorate filtration system from the Nordstrom Well, because readings taken there throughout the past three years have shown concentration haven't exceeded 6 ppb.
But former Mayor Dennis Kennedy said Nordstrom readings before 2004 showed concentration around 7 ppb; even at 4 ppb, he said it is problematic.
"It's an issue of concern to me because I have a hypothyroid condition which may be worsened by drinking water with perchlorate in it, even at levels below 6 ppb," Kennedy wrote in a guest column submitted to the Times. "To be on the safe side, I'll opt for bottled water."
Elsewhere in the letter, Kennedy said he doesn't blame the council and city staff, and holds the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and Olin Corp., the Tennessee-based company that operated a now-defunct facility on Tennant Avenue from which the contamination stemmed, responsible.
"It seems the board and board staff are not willing to take a strong stance in the public interest," Kennedy said. The board's staff has repeatedly said that it has weighed all the comments and made suitable revisions."
Getting Olin to reimburse Morgan Hill for its expenses associated with operating perchlorate removal systems on municipal wells has proved elusive thus far. The board issued a cleanup and abatement order to Olin on Dec. 7 but stopped short of discussing reimbursement on the advice of its lawyers. The lawyers were uncertain whether the board was legally empowered to order Olin to reimburse the city. The board announced it would accept briefs from Morgan Hill's lawyers to help decide the matter at a future hearing.
In his report to the council about the Dec. 7 marathon proceedings in San Luis Obispo, City Manager Ed Tewes said the city didn't get what it wanted and described the events as "almost like a high school debate contest." The board was lax in its requirements directed at Olin, he said.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
Morgan Hill city officials decided to go along with state recommendations of
6 parts per billion as the tested maximum level of perchlorate at municipal wells before installing and running the costly systems to remove the salt from the water. Because the state's standard is less stringent than the 2 ppb that Massachussetts has published, council member Mark Grzan and former Mayor Dennis Kennedy say the city and the state aren't doing enough to protect the public from the chemical, which can be harmful to the thyroid gland if ingested.
Slav Kandyba Slav Kandyba covers city and county issues for South Valley Newspapers. Reach him at (408) 779-4106, ext. 201 or e-mail him.
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