[CPEO-MEF] U.S. ordered to investigate contamination

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U.S. ordered to investigate contamination
TOXIC: State regulators seek a plan for handling groundwater pollution
in north Rialto.
10/26/2002
By SHARON McNARY
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE

The federal government must investigate perchlorate contamination of
groundwater near a World War II munitions depot in north Rialto, state
regulators said Friday.

Perchlorate contamination has closed or restricted the use of water from
20 drinking-water wells in Rialto, Colton, Fontana and other parts of
the San Bernardino Valley. Perchlorate can damage thyroid function.

If the plume of underground pollution continues to move south at its
current rate of 3 feet per day, water supplies in other regions,
including Riverside, could be contaminated.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board, Santa Ana Region, in a letter
sent Thursday, ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to submit a plan
by Nov. 25 to investigate soil and groundwater contamination.

Spokesman Greg Fuderer said Friday the Corps could not comment until it
had analyzed the order. The Corps of Engineers is acting on behalf of
the U.S. Army, which once owned more than 2,800 acres of the north
Rialto land.

The Los Angeles Backup Storage Facility, as it was originally known, was
built in 1941 in a location thought to be far enough inland to be out of
the reach of enemy bombers. Much of the munitions produced in the
interior of the nation and bound for the war in the Pacific passed
through the Rialto depot, a military report said.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_NEWS_nwater26.a1a45.html

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