Santa
Ana Water Board Chair Carol Beswick committed her agency last night to stronger
action to clean up perchlorate pollution in the Rialto region.
Faced
with scrutiny by the Senate Rules Committee during a normally routine
confirmation hearing, Beswick reiterated a promise made to community leaders
last week to stop the spread of perchlorate contamination throughout Rialto’s
aquifer, shift the cost of pollution cleanup to responsible parties, provide
replacement water to impacted residents and impose maximum penalties on polluters
who fail to meet these requirements.
“This
commitment means the difference between allowing rocketfuel to linger
in Rialto’s drinking water supply or restoring the aquifer to
health,” stated Sujatha Jahagirdar, Clean Water
Advocate for Environment California.
Perchlorate
is the major ingredient in rocket fuel.
At low concentrations in drinking water the toxin can lead to attention
deficit disorder, learning disabilities and decreased IQ. The extent of pollution and the community’s
almost sole reliance on groundwater renders Rialto one of the hardest communities in the nation by
perchlorate contamination.
Although
nearly a decade has passed since perchlorate was first discovered in
the
drinking water of Rialto, a working-class community an hour east of Los
Angeles, polluters Black & Decker and Goodrich have yet
to begin comprehensive cleanup efforts.
To date, polluters have paid less than 0.5 percent of the total $200
million estimated cost of cleanup.
As
a result of this delay, the perchlorate contamination continues to spread
throughout the aquifer and Rialto
community members continue to bear the brunt of cleanup costs. Many residents are also exposed to drinking
water sources polluted at levels above the only drinking water standard established
for perchlorate in the country – set at two parts per billion in May by Massachusetts.
“The
cleanup of perchlorate should not be paid for on the backs of residents who are
least able to afford it,” stated Penny Newman, Executive Director of the Inland
Valley-based Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice. “Polluters
must clean up the mess they’ve created.”
Specific
measures that the Santa Ana Water Board should adopt to restore the Rialto
drinking water supply to health include ordering polluters to immediately 1)
Stop the spread of the plume; 2) Provide safe, alternative supplies of water to
impacted residents; 3) Reimburse residents for increased water utility rates;
and 4) Pay maximum possible penalties for a failure to meet these requirements.
