WVWD Wants To Use Biological Decontamination Process

A decision from California public health officials on whether to grant Rialto-based West Valley Water District funding to proceed with an innovative groundwater treatment program is anticipated as early as next week.
West Valley has a $10 million grant proposal before the California Department of Public Health by which the district hopes to tap into a portion of $50 million in funding available this year pursuant to State Proposition 84.
The district wants to use that funding for its Joint Wellhead Treatment Project, which is intended to remove perchlorate from the water table beneath Rialto. That contaminant, a by-product of industrial activity in the area that was ongoing in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and as recently as the 1990s, is present in sufficient quantities to render the water unfit for human consumption. High levels of perchlorate can adversely affect the thyroid gland.
However, all drinking water currently being served by West Valley meets safe drinking water standards, and the Joint Wellhead project is being pursued to return off-line wells into service.
The Joint Well Head Treatment Project calls for use of a state-approved biological treatment process employing micro-organisms to destroy the perchlorate and other contaminants in drinking water and minimize the need for waste handling and disposal.
Prospects that West Valley will receive at least some of the funding it applied for appear good.
Over 100 applications for Proposition 84 funding were submitted for the current grant cycle. State officials eliminated more than ninety of those applications and are now considering nine proposals from water agencies, departments and municipalities up and down the state. Of those nine  determined to be qualified for final consideration, West Valley’s proposal was ranked first in an evaluation of the competing methodologies.
“We’re fairly confident because they said our application is one of the very best they’ve seen,” said Anthony “Butch” Araiza, general manager of West Valley Water District, a public agency that has served Rialto residents for nearly 60 years.
The treatment technology West Valley is proposing has been in existence for over a decade, having been given conditional approval by the Department of Public Health in 2002. However, it has never been put into Department of Public Health-permitted full use for drinking water, where water from the treatment process was served to the public. West Valley would be the first water purveyor to actually utilize the method, if funding to do so is made available.
The engineers working with West Valley on the proposal are the same team that developed the technology that was approved by DPH in 2002.
They also ran an additional field pilot-study in 2008-2009 with water from one of the city of Rialto’s wells, which carries the nomenclature Well Rialto-02, to prove to the State Department of Public Health it will work in the Rialto Basin.
There are two stages in the approval process for treatment systems permitted by the Department of Public Health. First, the actual technology needs to be shown to work. Second, on a well by well/system by system basis, the Department of Public Health needs to agree that new technology is safe and will work specifically for the contaminants and water system it is being proposed for, and allow its use as part of the water system operations or the water permit.  The 1999/2000 letters of approval got the process past the first step, but no one in California has gone to the second step for this specific treatment approach.
If fully approved, funded and undertaken, the Joint Well Head Treatment Program will move West Valley Water District a significant step forward in its decades-long campaign to recover valuable water resources that were contaminated by industrial activity. The city of Rialto is a partner in the project.
In addition to its use of cutting-edge environmental technology, WVWD’s Joint Wellhead Treatment Project will create jobs in construction and engineering in San Bernardino County, home for some of California’s most economically hard hit residents. The creation of green jobs is a top priority of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama.
Since perchlorate was first discovered in the Rialto-Colton groundwater basin more than a decade ago, West Valley Water District has led the effort to work with others in the community to identify the most scientifically sound and cost-effective solutions to clean up the region’s groundwater. West Valley helped organize and remains a leader of the Inland Empire Perchlorate Task Force (PTF), a multi agency effort comprised of federal, state and local officials dedicated to tackle this complex problem.
“Since we opened our doors, we have fought to ensure the safety of our community’s water supply,” said Araiza, West Valley’s general manager. “While lawyers for other entities sort out the blame, we have to do what is most important for our customers: solve the problem. That is why we have focused our resources on working with the city of Rialto and federal and state regulators to clean up the groundwater and find the best ways to ensure our community has a safe, affordable and plentiful water supply.”
The Joint Wellhead Treatment Project represents a scientific first in California, according to the district. The project will allow West Valley Water District and the city of Rialto to restore two wells that had been taken out of service due to perchlorate, nitrate and tricholoroethylene (TCE) groundwater contamination. West Valley Water District considers this project the first major step in a regional undertaking that will ultimately restore the region’s groundwater resources.
The proposal for the Joint Wellhead Treatment Project was supported by the city of Rialto. The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board and the U.S. Department of Defense contributed an additional $5.8 million to help finance the project and the state Department of Public Health was instrumental in ensuring that the treatment technology will provide safe drinking water.
The technology to treat the perchlorate contaminant is called a “fluidized bed bioreactor” and it was developed by Envirogen Technologies, Inc., which is based in Kingwood, Texas.  The process uses microorganisms that naturally occur in the groundwater to destroy the perchlorate contaminant, turning it into a harmless chloride ion that is similar to table salt.  This type of technology is already being used to treat more than 10 million gallons  of water a day. However, West Valley Water District is the first to use this technology for potable water.
State Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod, Assemblyman Bill Emmerson and Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter, along with the late Assemblywoman Nell Soto, all had a hand in getting the perchlorate task force launched and ensuring this project’s success.
While waiting for final state approval, West Valley is working to raise the additional incremental funds needed to complete the groundwater treatment program and to launch additional projects to further accelerate the basin-wide cleanup.
What is known or suspected is that several companies operating in northern Rialto, including the Goodrich Corporation; Emhart Industries, a subsidiary of Black and Decker; Pyro Spectaculars; West Coast Loading Corporation and Broco Inc., engaged in manufacturing or processing activity that utilized or rendered perchlorate as a by-product and that the contaminant in some fashion was deposited on the ground in that area, eventually making its way into the water table.
Broco Inc. maintained a hazardous-waste disposal operation in northern Rialto from the mid-1960s until the late 1980s. The county purchased the property in 1994 and used it in the expansion of the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill.
Attorney Barry Groveman, who represents West Valley Water District, has said in the past that it appears the county simply dismantled the hazardous waste facility and spread the debris around before burying it, worsening the contamination of the ground water below Rialto.
The county has retained the law firm of Gallagher & Gallagher to perform up to $1.27 million worth of legal services related to the closure of the former Broco facility at the Mid-Valley Landfill and other specific perchlorate groundwater pollution related actions. The county has also paid the law firm of Price, Postel & Parma $4,000,000 to defend it against charges it acted irresponsibly in razing the Broco facility.