Criticism Grows as Congressional Hearing Nears : EPA Rethinks Its Strategy on Water Cleanup

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has spent $8.5 million on ground-water contamination in the San Gabriel Valley without developing a comprehensive plan or cleaning up any water, is reevaluating its approach.

The reevaluation comes amid growing criticism of the EPA by water suppliers, community groups and political leaders.

Conferring on New Strategy

EPA spokesman Terry Wilson said the agency’s regional office in San Francisco, which oversees the San Gabriel Valley Superfund project, is conferring with officials in Washington on a new strategy for attacking ground-water pollution.

That strategy will be unveiled, Wilson said, at a congressional hearing that Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente) has scheduled June 5 in Baldwin Park.

Wilson said EPA officials will not discuss any changes in priorities on the project until the hearing by the Small Business Committee’s subcommittee on environment and labor, headed by Torres.

Torres has already berated EPA for a lack of progress in dealing with a contamination problem that was discovered nearly 10 years ago and has been on the Superfund priority list since 1984. Suspected carcinogens have seeped into more than one-fourth of the 400 wells in the Main San Gabriel Basin, jeopardizing the water supply of 1 million people.

“From the material presented to me so far by the agency,” Torres said, “it appears to me that EPA has, at the very least, mismanaged the project. For 10 years they have been running around in circles trying to decide what to do and they still don’t know.”

EPA also will face strong criticism at the hearing from the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, which imports water to the area; the Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster, which oversees pumping from wells in the basin, and the Upper San Gabriel Valley Water Assn., which represents water suppliers.

Robert G. Berlien, general manager of the water district, has been authorized by all three agencies to tell the congressional hearing that EPA is moving much too slowly.

District Manager’s Points

In testimony prepared for the hearing, Berlien has outlined these concerns:

EPA has not developed an overall plan or cleaned up any water. “Water suppliers do not have a clear understanding of where the cleanup project is headed.”

Little progress has been made in finding out how pollutants contaminated ground water. The pollutants include trichloroethylene (TCE), perchloroethylene (PCE) and other solvents. The sources must be found to make sure that contamination is not continuing and to identify polluters who can be billed for cleanup costs. Even though EPA is giving the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board $1 million a year to find pollution sources, the water board says it will take 10 years to complete its initial survey at its present pace.

EPA’s decision to concentrate resources and efforts on preventing contaminated ground water from moving southward through the Whittier Narrows to the neighboring Central Basin is of little help to the San Gabriel Valley. Meanwhile, cleanup of the San Gabriel Valley’s most polluted region, the Azusa-Baldwin Park area, is being deferred.

EPA’s decision to spend more than $1.5 million to solve the pollution problem of a tiny El Monte water company that serves only 200 homes, Berlien said, “does not appear to us to be a reasonable decision.” The problem could have been solved cheaply with a connection to another water supplier.

EPA’s proposed change of engineering contractors “in mid-project can only result in significant time delays as one contractor phases out and another gears up to take over. Vast amounts of specific site experience will be lost in the change and large expenditures will be needed to educate the new engineering contractor.”

Berlien said he understands that the current contractor, the environmental consulting and engineering firm of CH2M Hill, will be replaced on the San Gabriel Valley project by the Bechtel Co. next year. Wilson at EPA said that a change might be made, but contracts have not yet been signed.

Staff Increases

In his written testimony, Berlien said the water agencies believe that EPA should increase its staff on the San Gabriel Valley project, consider opening a local office, accelerate the search for pollution sources and immediately begin to clean up heavily contaminated ground water in Baldwin Park and Azusa.

In spite of his harsh criticism of the cleanup effort, Berlien said he hopes that EPA will not dwell on past mistakes but move forward. “We certainly do not wish to see EPA expending its limited resources on justifying its past actions,” he said.