[CPEO-MEF] San Martin (CA) perchlorate articles

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

1.
South Santa Clara County homeowners thirst to learn if well water is
safe to drink
FLARE-MAKING TAINTED SOUTH COUNTY AQUIFERS

By Jeff Thomas
San Jose Mercury News (CA)
December 7, 2007

Because his San Martin well is contaminated with a chemical called
perchlorate, Bob Cerruti has had to use bottled water for drinking and
cooking for the past four years.

"It's getting a little old," he said. Particularly when it comes to
hefting those five-gallon jugs day after day.

Today, at a hearing in San Luis Obispo, Cerruti and dozens of his
neighbors who also have tainted wells, along with officials from Morgan
Hill and Gilroy, are hoping for a clue about when they can be assured
their water is safe.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_7658630

2.
City's perchlorate lawyer fees exceed $500,000

By Slav Kandyba
Morgan Hill Times (CA)
December 7, 2007

MORGAN HILL

No lawsuits have been filed during the three years the city has retained
a Santa Barbara law firm to represent it on perchlorate cleanup matters.

Still, the law firm of Hatch and Parent has billed the city more than
$500,000 since 2004, according to Morgan Hill City Attorney Janet Kern.

And the billing keeps going up. The city council on Nov. 28 unanimously
approved amending the contract with Hatch and Parent to authorize
spending up to an additional $75,000 through June 2008. With the city
having paid out more than half a million so far, the allocation means
Hatch and Parent can bill the city up to $650,000 more through that time
period, Kern said. The funds come from the city's water operations fund,
Kern wrote in a report submitted to the council Nov. 28.


For the entire article, see
http://morganhilltimes.com/news/contentview.asp?c#1128

3.
Olin battles water clean-up order – loses


By Slav Kandyba
Morgan Hill Times (CA)
December 11, 2007


After more than three years of meetings and hundreds of pages of reports
and comments, the state water board overseeing perchlorate cleanup at
the Olin Corp. facility on Friday ordered the company to clean up two of
the most contaminated areas instead of one. The board effectively
rejected Olin's requests to amend the order via its decision.

With the order in effect, the Tennessee-based road flare manufacturer
must include the two area, or "zones," of aquifers, where tests revealed
the highest concentration of the toxic salt. The polluted aquifers sit
hundreds of feet below Morgan Hill.

The board turned away Olin arguments that treating zone B, which
surrounds zone A on all sides, would cause delays, be costly and
ineffective. Olin's Director of Environmental Remediation David M. Share
said cleanup throughout the entire 10-mile perchlorate plume in the


...

For the entire article, see
http://morganhilltimes.com/news/contentview.asp?c#1374

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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