City must provide water to some on Soap Mine

BARSTOW — The city has until Sunday to supply certain residences in the Soap Mine Road neighborhood with water, but some could start receiving water today.

According to Soap Mine Road resident Christina Byrne, a water supplier from Newberry Springs will start delivering water a day before the deadline imposed by a state water agency.

The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board ordered the city to provide “an uninterrupted replacement water supply” of bottled water or an equivalent source to residents with elevated levels of nitrates. Based on water test results from May 2006, August 2006 and on May 10, the order will affect the owners of 23 wells.

The Monds, who live on Nelson Road, are one family eligible to receive bottled water. In May 2006, their well tested at 5.8 mg/L. On May 10, the level rose 7.3 mg/L. They have not been drinking bottled water.

“I thought I was safe with the low number that we have,” Lynda Monds said.

Health officials consider water with nitrate pollution at 10 mg/L unsafe to drink. The 5 mg/L level set by Lahontan considers changes in nitrate levels observed in the area.

City Manager Hector Rodriguez said the city will comply with the order. The city ran into early problems finding a supplier who could deliver the water by the weekend, he said, but found a way to get enough drinking water to the residents by Sunday. Rodriguez expects the order to cost the city $350 a week.

According to the order, the city must shoulder some of the responsibility for the polluted groundwater in the area.

“The Discharger (the city) was responsible for the operation of the reclamation field and the discharge of wastes that caused elevated nitrate concentrations in groundwater,” according to the order.

Before 2004, the city sprayed 1.2 million gallons of treated sewage a day from the wastewater treatment plant on a field in the area, located near Soap Mine Road and the Interstate 15. The order stated that the waste contained nitrates as well as compounds known to create nitrates.

Byrne said the order was “above and beyond” anything she could had expected from the state agency. She cried, she said, when she saw the order.

“The neighborhood is just ecstatic,” she said. “For the people who can’t afford it, they are going to get good clean water. For the people who can, it is just one less expense to worry about.”

If the city does not comply, the city could be referred to the state attorney general for legal action, according to the order.