Test Drilling to Begin in South Gate : Tracking Down Water Polluters

In the difficult business of finding ground-water polluters, the case of South Gate’s tainted drinking water stands out.

When city officials called the state Department of Health Services for help a year ago, toxic investigators set aside several other possible Superfund cases and came out to take a look.

In many major ground-water cases, it takes years just to define the problem. Determining who should pay for the cleanup often comes much later.

South Gate was different not because of the health threat posed by chemicals in its wells before they were shut down or the $5-million price tag on its proposed water-purification plant, but because South Gate had a suspect.

Run Recycling Operation

And the suspect had a history.

About one-third of a mile away from Recreation Park, where four of six city wells closed by pollution are located, lies Cooper Drum Co.

Cooper Drum, a recycling operation where 55-gallon barrels are cleaned and stacked in towering rows, received public attention in April, 1987, when a caustic liquid soap began oozing from the soil at adjacent Tweedy Elementary School. The county cited Cooper for Tweedy’s contamination.

Also found in the soil near the block wall that separates the company and the school--now closed because of soil and airborne contaminants from nearby industries--were high levels of the industrial degreasing solvent perchloroethylene, or PCE. Investigators say they think that Cooper is the source of that PCE contamination.

Concentrations of PCE also had been discovered in the soil at Cooper in 1984, when the company had to truck away 180 tons of soil contaminated through illegal discharges of hazardous wastes, according to county health department reports.

PCE is the chemical that forced South Gate to close its four Recreation Park wells in 1986 and another nearby well three weeks ago. All five wells are southwest of Cooper, in line with the flow of the aquifer from which all city wells draw their water, investigators say.

Testing is about to begin that may eventually determine whether the PCE in South Gate wells can be traced to Cooper.

“To me they’re the obvious suspect,” Cathy Rumfelt, South Gate’s emergency services coordinator, said of Cooper, which also operates plants in South El Monte and Richmond.

Nestor Acedera, a supervisor for the Toxics Division of the state Department of Health Services said: “We’re confident that we will find problems (at Cooper). All indications are that there are problems (with PCE) out there.”

But company spokesman Barry Brown said he thinks no connection can be made between Cooper and the contaminated wells.

“We have no doubt in our mind that the site’s clean. That’s what we feel now. But until we get the test results we just can’t say (for sure).”

Regular Use of Chemicals

In a previous interview, Brown said that Cooper regularly uses sodium hydroxide, a caustic soap used to wash barrels. Other chemicals at Cooper are the ones removed from near-empty barrels as they are cleaned, he said.

“So to have large-scale PCE contamination from this site doesn’t seem likely. . . . Hopefully it doesn’t come from here,” he said.

A number of other companies that might have used PCE over the years are also located in the same general area, Brown said. “There are several large chemical facilities just north of us,” he said.

City and state officials agree with Brown that PCE contamination is a problem throughout eastern South Gate and the Southeast area. A sixth city well closed by PCE is not near Cooper, nor are two other city wells where trace amounts of the solvent have been found. In all, PCE has been discovered in at least 50 public wells throughout the Southeast area since 1985.

“They’re not the only (possible) suspect; we just don’t know who the others are yet,” said the city’s Rumfelt. “We’re not picking on them. It could be some other business.”

Firm May Get Billed

If the Recreation Park contamination is finally traced to Cooper, Acedera said, the state or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency--which might take over the case if contamination at Cooper is extremely serious--will press the company to pay at least part of the water cleanup costs that South Gate’s 15,000 water customers now face alone.

There is also a possibility that state or federal Superfund money could be forthcoming. “We can see the potential for this site to rate close to the top of our (funding) list,” Acedera said.

But that process of defining the problem, removing it and deciding who will pay for the cleanup could take years. So South Gate, which has lost 55% of its water supply to PCE, is not waiting for a state or federal solution.

At a hearing Monday, the City Council will consider construction of a $5-million treatment and storage facility at Recreation Park as part of a $25-million package of improvements for its 60-year-old water system.

‘We Can’t Wait’

Anticipating the multimillion-dollar costs of the Recreation Park treatment plant alone, the council increased residential water rates last month, raising the typical bill by 15% to $9.37. The full $25-million package would gradually increase the typical bill to $27 by the year 2000, city officials say.

“We can’t wait and take no action,” said Rollie D. Berry, city director of public works, the department that oversees water distribution. “Obviously, if a connection can be made to Cooper, it would be pursued. But if we lay back and wait for that to happen, it may be a long, long time coming, if ever.”

It is not clear how much Cooper, a family-owned business that has operated from its small Atlantic Avenue headquarters since the 1950s, would be able to contribute to a cleanup or how much it will eventually cost.

Acedera said questions about the ability of companies to participate in cleanups are not usually posed until they are conclusively identified as a polluter. Brown said he could not comment on his company’s long-term ability to pay.

“I think we’re doing everything we have to do at this point,” Brown said, “and we’ll continue to cooperate with the state.”

State investigators said that, despite a five-month delay in getting an acceptable plan for preliminary soil testing from Cooper’s consultants, the company has generally been cooperative.

Other Sources Pursued

The state, in addition to analyzing Cooper’s testing plans, is pursuing what investigators say is the good possibility that a number of polluters contributed to contamination in the Recreation Park wells.

“Cooper could (prove to) be the only contributor, but I doubt it,” said Todd Goeks, a state investigator.

Goeks said he mailed surveys to dozens of industries within about half a mile of Recreation Park, asking what types of wastes they produce.

“From the survey, there haven’t been any flashing neon lights, leading us to believe there’s another nearby potential source of PCE contamination,” Goeks said. “Of course, some of the (businesses) I hoped to hear from didn’t respond.”

At Cooper Drum, a consultant for the company is expected to complete tests of soil as deep as 60 feet within two months.

According to a testing plan approved by the state on Thursday, about 14 holes will be drilled in an area where barrels are washed and near 12 below-ground settling tanks where waste water is flushed. Particular attention will be given to cracked concrete trenches through which the waste water once flowed, Goeks said.

Cooper spokesman Brown said that the company had inspected its settling tanks for leaks and none were found. “They show no wear and are intact,” he said.

If PCE is found at or near 60 feet, Cooper will then be required to drill test wells into the top ground-water basin beneath the plant, which is at about 80 feet, Goeks said.

Still, discovery of PCE in the ground water at Cooper would hardly constitute an absolute link between the company and the nearby polluted water wells, investigators said.

Although the Recreation Park wells are in the path of subterranean water basins that flow from Cooper’s direction, they draw their water from 600 to 800 feet, not 80. And contamination in the shallow ground water would be separated from the deep Silverado Aquifer that supplies South Gate’s water by at least two other aquifers and three layers of clay, water officials say.

Industrial pollution, especially heavy solvents like PCE, has migrated around such nearly impermeable clay layers from shallow water basins to deep drinking-water aquifers in some places, water officials say. But they have no proof that is happening in South Gate.

“That’s what makes this so confusing,” said Thomas A. Salzano, assistant general manager of the Central and West Basin Water Replenishment District in Downey. “There’s no good information on that.”

However, by drilling a series of water-monitoring wells at a variety of depths in a radius from the Cooper site, investigators probably will be able to tell from PCE readings whether the contamination begins at the site and is moving toward Recreation Park.

Even now, state investigators say Cooper’s history of problems makes them confident tests will find enough PCE contamination to order the company to drill test wells into ground water.

“They’re claiming now that drums they receive are pretty much clean,” said Jim Nishida, of the county Department of Health Services, which is participating in the investigation. “But for a long time I’m sure they were getting drums with quite a bit of stuff in them.”