City looks into providing bottled water to Soap Mine Road residents

'Is our water safe to drink?' Soap Mine Road resident Christina Bryne asks DPRA consultants Gary Vargas, right, and Robert Falero at Wednesday's City Council study session on nitrate pollution in the Soap Mine Road area.

As a act of goodwill and without admitting city liability, I felt it would be in the best interest of the community to have city staff evaluate the cost and determine the number of families that could be effected by the high nitrate levels. In a future meeting the staff will bring it's findings, give a few options and recommendation and council will vote on the agenda item. Joe

By AARON AUPPERLEE Staff Writer May 3, 2007 - 7:16AM BARSTOW - Jim Swartwout, a Soap Mine Road area resident concerned about nitrate pollution, told the City Council he cares about the "little guy." And by the end of Wednesdays study session on nitrate pollution, he felt like the Council did, too. At the conclusion of the meeting, Council member Joe Gomez directed the city - without accepting blame in the matter - to investigate providing water to families in the Soap Mine Road area whose water has high nitrate levels. "We had a Council member stand up and help get some people some water," Swartwout said. "Now it's starting to change." Gomez asked the city to determine the cost of providing bottled water for families drinking from wells with a nitrate levels of nine milligrams per liter or higher. He also asked that city staff determine how many women in that area are pregnant because nitrate contamination presents a health risk to infants. As nitrates work into an infant's body, it can block the blood from properly carrying oxygen, potentially a fatal situation if untreated. Drinking water is considered polluted when it contains 10 mg/L of nitrates or more, according to Mike Plaziak, a senior engineering geologist with the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. City Manager Hector Rodriguez said the city will do the analysis based on the Council's direction. Based on tests done last year, there are 12 wells in the Soap Mine Road area with a nitrate levels above nine, said Soap Mine Road resident Christina Bryne. Soap Mine Road residents plan to have their wells retested on May 10. Soap Mine Road residents have butted heads with the city over nitrate contamination in the area since learning about the contamination in 2006. In 2004, the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board ordered the city to stop spreading sewage on the fields after finding high levels of nitrates in the ground water. City efforts to monitor and define the nitrate contamination became partially de-railed in April when a report from DPRA, an environmental consulting firm, questioned the testing data presented to the city. Gary Vargas, a consultant with DPRA, said he was unable to draw many conclusions from the testing done by RGS because of inconsistencies in the data. RGS is a sub-contractor hired by Aquarion, the city's wastewater treatment service provider. "We would have loved to have used it, but we couldn't," Vargas told the Council. After reviewing the data, DPRA questioned at least a dozen reports that have duplicate or near-duplicate results across several testing sites and numerous inconsistencies in the data. A total of 17 monthly monitoring reports from March 2003 to January 2007 were found to have questionable laboratory results, according to the report. DPRA marked every monitoring report from June 2005 to January 2007 questionable. DPRA's report suggested that the city and Aquarion end its relationship with RGS. Pat Lendway, the city's wastewater treatment coordinator, said the city is investigating that relationship. Aquarion's contract with the city ends in February 2009. Plaziak said Lahontan will issue a report on May 18 evaluating DPRA's report and could require the city to do additional investigation in the area. "The validity of the data is of concern to us, serious concern to us," Plaziak said. "We're going to look very closely into that." Lahontan may also issue an enforcement order to the city directing it to clean up pollution found to be the city's fault, he said. The enforcement order could also mandate that the city provide bottled water to affected residents.