Water board approves Hinkley chromium clean-up plan

BARSTOW — The regional water board approved proposals on Wednesday to clean up contaminated groundwater in Hinkley, but some residents worry about possible health effects and a reduction in local water supplies from the plan.

The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board unanimously approved plans by electricity producer Pacific Gas & Electric on Wednesday to implement full-scale clean-up of a long-standing plume of chromium 6 in the groundwater.

The clean up process is a two pronged approach to convert the toxic chromium 6 into the non-toxic, naturally occurring chromium 3. One part of the plan is designed to stop the flow of the chromium plume and will pump contaminated water out of the ground and back into the soil, naturally filtering out pollutants. The second part of the clean-up, an in-situ treatment, will treat the chromium 6 directly in the groundwater by adding ethanol, vegetable oil and acids into the water supply as part of a natural conversion process of chromium 6 into chromium 3, according to Jon Tremayne, spokesman for PG&E.

Water board officials and PG&E employees said that the clean-up will not affect the color or taste of the area’s drinking water but did say that water pumping as part of the process could draw down water levels anywhere from two to five feet, which could affect 49 private wells nearby. Tremayne said the company will monitor potential negative effects on the groundwater but doesn’t foresee a major supply reduction as a result of the clean-up.

“We’re not pumping any more water than we already are,” he said.

PG&E has been testing both methods at the site of the plume for several months and full-scale implementation of the clean-up could begin in the coming days. Tremayne said that the processes are safe and have been proven.

“The pumping combined with the in-situ treatment is an effective way to remove the hexavalent chromium from the groundwater,” he said.

Harold Singer, executive officer of the water board, acknowledged that the clean up methods are experimental but believes they will work.

“This is a difficult, complex site to work on,” he said. “We want to learn from this technology.”

Some Hinkley residents aren’t so sure about the plan.

Elaine Kearney, who lives on Mountain View Street near the dairy where the clean up will occur, said she feels the clean up technology is still too experimental to be used.

“I don’t think it’s very safe,” she said.

She also worries that the water pumping as part of the clean up will lower the groundwater level below the depth of her well.

“We already have low water pressure. What’s it going to do to us?” she said

Hinkley activist Norm Diaz said he was uncomfortable with the idea of ethanol and chemicals being placed into the water in the area of Hinkley School where his children attend. PG&E promised to perform water testing at the school to ensure that the chemicals don’t spread into the water supply. Diaz also said that he worries that the pumping may exhaust water supplies at Hinkley School causing it to close, something Jerry Bergmans, superintendent of Barstow schools, said isn’t likely to happen.

“We don’t have a concern about the wells going dry at Hinkley. The wells are deep and go up against bedrock,” he said.

He said that if the chromium plume contaminates the school’s water supplies, the district has a commitment from PG&E to provide bottled water for the site.

Legal judgments in the 1990s found electricity producer PG&E responsible for polluting area water with chromium 6, a compound used to prevent rust in the company’s cooling towers. The compound was used for 14 years starting in 1952 and thought to have caused cancer and other health problems for nearby residents. The movie “Erin Brockovich” brought national attention to the incident in 2000.

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