EPA Tests Ground Water at Coors After TV Inquiry

Prodded by a television news inquiry and a company-sponsored investigation, state and federal officials said they tested for pollution Tuesday in ground water wells at the Adolph Coors Co. brewery in Golden, Colo.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Colorado Department of Health were startled to learn that Coors had discovered waste-solvent contamination in ground water under the brewery more than eight years ago. The agencies’ test results are expected in a week.

So far there is no evidence that any contamination got into the beer, which boasts of being made with pure Rocky Mountain spring water. However, the Food and Drug Administration said it plans to test the beer.

The FDA also plans to look into how Coors handled the situation. There will be “a retrospective review of the organization’s decision-making process,” FDA district director LeRoy M. Gomez said Wednesday.

Coors found the contamination during a routine screening in the fall of 1981 but did not notify the Department of Health until June, 1988, according to David Shelton, the department’s director of hazardous materials and waste management. Even then, Coors did not volunteer the information but responded to a Department of Health inquiry prompted by an anonymous tip.

And it was not until Wednesday that the department learned that the problem dated back to the early 1980s. “We’ve got some more digging to do,” Shelton said.

The federal authorities only learned about the problem on Tuesday, when local station KMGH-TV aired an expose.

After a company-sponsored investigation by a Denver lawyer, Coors announced that it had stopped using the two wells--out of 40--that were primarily affected, and that by 1984, it had completed repairs of the sewage system that was leaking cancer-causing tetrachloroethylene, known as PCE, and toxic 1,1,1 trichloroethane, or TCA, and other substances into the wells.

Coors and state and federal officials maintain that so far there is no evidence that a public health risk existed. Nor are any of the agencies contemplating criminal charges.

“I’m confident that there were no levels of these chemicals in the beer,” Coors President Peter Coors said.

Theodore S. Halaby, the attorney who conducted Coors’ investigation, interviewed 30 past and present employees, examined company test reports and concluded that the contamination was adequately contained in 1982; that it never exceeded levels of permissible concentration suggested by the National Academy of Sciences (no federal or state standards existed for TCA or PCE until 1988) and that there is no indication of harm to the surrounding environment. During repair of the sewage system, some contaminants were released that might have entered a stream off Coors property.

Halaby concluded, however, that the company’s decision not to notify authorities of the pollution, and of the release of volatile organic chemicals into Clear Creek, was “in error.”