Pollution Darkens West’s Already Bad Water Picture

Of the 80 trillion gallons of water consumed every year in the 22 contiguous states west of the Mississippi River, 30% comes from water that percolates naturally or is pumped into underground storage basins.

But some of it--nobody is sure quite how much--is tainted by oozing toxic waste, agricultural pesticides that accumulate in the ground and high levels of naturally occurring minerals that are leached into the water.

The worst pollution exists in industrial and agricultural regions.

Estimates of how much of the nation’s total ground water is contaminated vary widely. To a large degree, it depends on what is being counted.

Studies range from diluted levels based on the country’s total subterranean supply to more-alarming estimates based primarily on existing wells in populated areas where pollutants are more commonplace.

‘Not Much Consolation’

“For someone whose water is polluted, it’s not much consolation to tell him that only a small percentage of the nation’s water is contaminated,” said William A. Mullen of the Environmental Protection Agency’s northwest region. “If that is a person’s only water supply and it is polluted, it is a catastrophe.”

The West’s geology makes it hard for toxic sleuths to do their job. The intricate nature of aquifers, the rock formations that determine how water and contamination flow under the ground, makes it nearly impossible to track pollution and determine where it will pop up next.

“Every time we take another look, we find another problem,” said Jeff Barnickol, head of the ground water unit of the California Water Resources Control Board.

Tim Amsden, director of the EPA’s regional ground water protection section in Kansas City, which covers Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, agrees.

‘Three-Dimensional Puzzle’

“It’s almost impossible,” he said. “It’s like a black box, a three-dimensional puzzle. So the best we can offer is mostly anecdotal.”

Such examples of polluted ground water, and the threat of future contamination, abound.

California, the nation’s most populous state, has more than 25,000 abandoned sites where toxic wastes have been deposited since the end of World War II, when generation of hazardous waste mushroomed. About 180 sites in 39 counties are on the state’s list of those most urgently needing to be cleaned up.

In Arizona, the industrial sections of Phoenix and Tucson are facing “major problems,” said Bill Thurston, chief of the EPA’s regional water supply section based in San Francisco.

Hawaii, whose residents had been accustomed to relatively pure water, is reporting contamination from the farm chemicals dibromochloropropane (DBCP) and ethyldibromide (EDB) from its pineapple and sugar-cane plantations, Thurston said. Both chemicals cause cancer in laboratory animals and are suspected of being human carcinogens as well.

In Colorado, a devil’s brew of nerve agent and chemical waste has been percolating for years at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, where rolling plains within view of downtown Denver’s skyscrapers belie the trouble underground. The 27-acre site has been termed the most polluted piece of real estate in the nation.

At the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy 2 1/2 years ago stopped its 30-year-old practice of pumping “slightly radioactive” waste water into the Snake River Plain Aquifer. Now it is channeled into a four-acre percolation pond that officials concede slows but does not stop radioactive materials from reaching the ground water.

In Nevada, natural fluoride levels are so high in several rural water supplies that it is blackening people’s teeth and, officials fear, making their bones brittle. In Washoe County, which encompasses Reno, natural arsenic, boron and sulfate contamination have affected ground water.

Jay Lehr, executive director of the National Water Well Assn., a professional, research and education organization based in Dublin, Ohio, estimates that less than 1% of all the ground water in the 48 contiguous states is polluted.

“If you look at just the population centers, the figure is perhaps 2% to 4%,” Lehr said.

Low Estimate

But Amsden of the EPA considers that a low estimate.

“It would be more appropriate to look only at water that is economically and reasonably available, and that figure would probably be substantially higher,” Amsden said.

“Usually degradation of ground water occurs where man’s activities are, and that’s where he needs to get the water. It doesn’t do a person much good if his ground water aquifer is contaminated but one 100 miles away isn’t.”

Amsden also noted that much ground water lies far deeper than is normally economical to dig a well. The average depth of a water well in the United States is about 165 feet.

California, coming to grips with the threat to ground water, has done extensive research on pollution and finds that virtually no region is free of the problem. Contamination is found in such diverse counties as crowded Los Angeles and sparsely populated Siskiyou at the northern end of the state.

Silicon Valley Polluters

The big surprise in recent years is pollution from high technology, once touted as a clean industry and boosted by enthusiastic civic leaders seeking to attract such businesses to their towns.

The Silicon Valley has for several years reported ground water pollution, mostly involving industrial solvents used by almost all the major computer, semiconductor and disk-drive makers.

Santa Clara County has half a dozen polluted ground water sites on the EPA Superfund list, and more than a dozen sites proposed for cleanup, more than any other county in the country.

More than 20 public wells in the county are also contaminated, according to the state Department of Health Services.

A state study released last year showed three times the normal number of birth defects and 2 1/2 times the normal number of miscarriages in a San Jose neighborhood where the well was polluted by chemicals from Fairchild Camera Co. The study did not conclude that the chemicals caused the abnormalities, but a follow-up study showed that when the well was closed, birth defects and miscarriages declined to normal levels.

Jacqueline Bogard, director of the Industry Clean Water Task Force in San Jose, said electronics companies had spent $100 million on cleanup since 1982. The Task Force is sponsored by the American Electronics Assn., the Santa Clara County Manufacturing Group and the Semiconductor Industry Assn.

Taken for Granted

“Until a relatively few years ago, everybody took ground water for granted,” said Bob Miller, a senior planner with the California Department of Water Resources in Sacramento. “They believed it was like money in the bank. It was always going to be there, and it was always going to be pure.”

That is not the case.

A study issued in June by the Department of Health Services found detectable levels of organic chemicals, mainly industrial solvents and refrigerants, agricultural herbicides and soil fumigants, in more than 18% of 2,947 city wells tested.

In 5.6% of the wells, the problem was so serious that the health agency ordered the water treated or the wells closed and the public notified of the potential danger.

But, some say, this may be only a hint of a far more serious situation.

The California Assembly Research Office sticks by its estimate that as much as 40% of California’s ground water could eventually be polluted.

“If we test the small systems, especially in rural areas near fields where pesticides are applied, the final result may well be near 40%,” Assembly researcher Wendy Umino said.

Billions to Cleanse Water

Most water officials are optimistic but predict it will take decades and cost billions of dollars to cleanse water of existing pollution and curtail future contamination.

A task force of several California agencies has nearly finished a yearlong effort to link anti-pollution programs and create a comprehensive, long-range plan.

The present task force thinking, Barnickol said, is that it is easier, cheaper and more effective to prevent pollution than try to clean it up after the damage is done.

“Cleaning polluted water is very expensive, and you can never get it totally pure again,” Barnickol said.