State Funds Will Reopen Polluted Well : Baldwin Park: A $2.9-million grant will pay for a treatment facility and maintenance at the Arrow Highway location, which has been closed since 1980.

The State Water Resources Control Board has allocated $2.9 million to reopen a Baldwin Park well at the heart of the San Gabriel Valley’s worst underground contamination.

The money, approved at the board’s meeting last week, will pay for a $1.3-million treatment facility on Arrow Highway near Lante Street and will also finance maintenance of the facility during the next 2 1/2 years.

Baldwin Park’s Arrow well has been shut down since 1980, when high levels of cancer-causing chemicals, including trichloroethylene and percholoroethylene, were detected in the water supply.

Stan Yarbrough, general manager of the Valley County Water District, which owns the closed well, said the cleanup not only will help his district--which serves 40,000 residents of Baldwin Park, West Covina, Irwindale and Azusa--but also will benefit surrounding districts. The project, however, will not affect customers’ water bills, he said.

In addition to the Arrow well, four of the district’s 10 other wells have been closed because of contamination. In all, 25% of the San Gabriel Valley’s wells--about 100--have been closed.

Environmental officials suspect that the harmful substances in the water came from facilities as diverse as large aerospace factories to small dry cleaning establishments and machine shops during the last 50 years.

Water officials and environmentalists say the Arrow project, to be overseen by the newly created Main San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Commission, is a good one but will by no means solve the extensive water pollution problems in the San Gabriel Valley.

“In the big picture, it’s just a small piece of the puzzle,” said Tim Jochem of the Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster’s office. “But several more projects of this magnitude could start to make a real impact.”

The entire San Gabriel Basin was placed on the federal Superfund list of national cleanup priorities in 1984. Federal and state officials estimate that it will take between $850 million to $1 billion to solve the valley’s contamination problem, one of the worst in the West.

Officials in April released a short-term, $106-million plan to attack the worst pollution, located mainly in Azusa, Baldwin Park, Irwindale and La Puente. Cleanup of the Arrow well fits into the approach outlined in those plans.

Despite his enthusiasm about the specific plans for the water treatment, Hacienda Heights environmentalist Will Baca expressed reservations.

“I’m happy that they’re at least starting a cleanup,” Baca said. “I am not happy where the money came from. They’re using (Browning-Ferris Industries) blood money.”

BFI is the parent firm of the Azusa Landfill Reclamation Co., which operates a controversial dump in Azusa. Last year, BFI offered and the State Water Resources Control Board accepted a $20-million payment to be used for cleanup of water pollution in the San Gabriel Valley.

The offer was made when BFI was attempting to gain state approval for expansion of its dump. In a controversial 3-2 vote, the board granted the dump’s request.

In response to Baca’s comments, state water board spokeswoman Sandra Salazar said “that argument stinks.”

The money to pay for the Arrow well, she said, comes from a state budget category separate from an escrow account containing money from BFI.

However, she did acknowledge that the BFI escrow account will temporarily help reimburse the cleanup account involved in the Arrow well project.

Ultimately, the money to clean up the well will come from fines collected from companies that violate state pollution laws, local and state water officials said.

The issue of who will pay for the cleanup and where the money comes from has long been a subject of debate. Most recently, Gov. Deukmejian irritated supporters of cleanup efforts when he trimmed a $1-million state budget item to have been used for San Gabriel Valley pollution.

Controversy over BFI’s $20-million transaction has been an unusual rallying point for environmentalists and local and regional water agency officials.

A coalition of water agencies and environmentalists, worried that BFI’s expansion of the Azusa dump would have an adverse affect on the already-beleaguered ground-water supply, filed suit against the company.

Earlier this year, a Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the landfill firm, but that decision has been appealed.