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According to the East Valley Tribune (CA):
Two recent drinking water contamination scares that affected Scottsdale and Paradise Valley customers were unprecedented in Arizona, and possibly the nation, federal environmental regulators said Thursday.
“I do not believe that it has happened in the rest of the country,” said Keith Takata, Environmental Protection Agency Superfund Division director.
At the behest of U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz., the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, held a hearing in Washington Thursday involving the trichloroethylene, or TCE, scares at a private drinking water facility that serves residential and commercial customers in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley.
Read the full story here.
When the Motorola-hired Arizona American Water Company experienced system failure several weeks ago and piped dangerously TCE-contaminated water to residents through their supply system, they set a plan to collect some of the TCE-contaminated water they were processing so that it did not reach homes.
Now the company has 300,000 gallons of water in its reservoir that is contaminated with low levels of TCE. Since the levels are reportedly below the federal MCL of 5ppb for TCE, the company is plotting to dump all 300,000 gallons into the Arizona Canal:
There are municipal water treatment plants downstream from the contamination site – two in Phoenix and one each in Tempe, Glendale and Peoria – that treat water for use in their supplies, according to Salt River Project, which operates the canal. Mark Shaffer, Arizona Department of Environmental Quality spokesman, said Arizona American has the option of discharging treated water into the canal, provided it meets government purity guidelines.
Arizona American has taken out advertisements in local newspapers, including the Tribune, in attempt to reassure customers that potentially contaminated water consumed during the breakdown is unlikely to cause adverse health effects.
In some ways, it’s hard for us to know what to make of this. After all, we are not experts in alternative uses of 300,000 gallons of tainted water. That said, at least two questions spring immediately to mind in reading this story:
- If they are so certain the water is “unlikely” to cause adverse health effects, why not deliver it to customers?
- If the company won’t supply this water directly to customers, why is it safe to dump in a canal upstream from other water supply sources?
Remember, even low level TCE exposure can cause health problems, including immune system changes.
The East Valley Tribune (AZ) reveals:
The investigation into last week’s drinking water scare in parts of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley has expanded to include Motorola, potentially leaving the electronics giant open to federal fines, environmental officials said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Arizona American Water Co. — the private utility with whom Motorola contracts to treat groundwater pumped from a local Superfund site — is considering what to do with up to a half-million gallons of potentially contaminated water in a reservoir underneath its treatment plant.
[...]
Motorola is one of four companies charged with dumping TCE into Scottsdale’s groundwater supply beginning in the 1950s. Motorola hired Arizona American to pump and treat that groundwater, and could be held responsible for mishaps, Takata said.
A few things about this story make us wonder:
As always, well keep you posted if we learn more. Meantime, read the full story here.
The East Valley Tribune (AZ) reports:
Scottsdale officials Tuesday ordered a study into the possibility of taking over water service to about 1,200 city residents from a private water utility after a hazardous chemical pollutant entered the company’s water supply twice in three months.
The City Council voted unanimously to begin an investigation of the city’s options in securing safe water for Scottsdale customers on Arizona American Water Co.’s system. Those options could include buying or condemning the Scottsdale portion of the private utility’s system, or running parallel water lines to connect those customers to Scottsdale’s municipal system, said Ron McCullagh, the councilman who raised the discussion.
“As Scottsdale residents and taxpayers, they deserve the same safe and reliable water delivery service that we give to other residents of this city,” McCullagh said.
We learn from the editor of Random Musings that Mccullagh is a customer of Arizona American Water Company, the private utility in question. After attending the meeting, Random Musings had this to share:
I don’t think this will actually go anywhere; it seemed to be more an exercise in “showing the voters that we’re on top of things” than anything else. The council members seemed to hope that the [study] will say that the problem has been dealt with and no one needs to worry any more.
For East Valley Tribune coverage, see here. For the inside scoop from Random Musings, see here.
Good news folks, the ban has been lifted. Customers of Arizona American Water in Scottsdale/Paradise Valley may return to using their tap water as normal. According to a press release on Arizona American’s website:
Impacted customers may wish to run their water briefly to flush their systems, as well as remove water from their hot water tanks. Hot water tanks could contain affected water.
Earlier in the week, Arizona American Water took its treatment plant offline, and then flushed the system to reduce the levels of TCE in the water. Robust sampling has confirmed that the water now meets or surpasses all standards for drinking water. The company is investigating what the malfunction was at the plant and will take all corrective measures.
Arizona American Water is notifying customers today via automated phone calls that the water is now acceptable to drink. Customers with questions may e-mail infoaz@amwater.com or call 800 383 0834.
Amazing. They tout that they are going to use the same broken system – the one that leaves out 35% of its customers – to alert customers to the ban lift. Priceless.
The East Valley Tribune (AZ) has a link to this helpful map of the affected service area (click the image to enlarge):
The Arizona Republic is reporting that the Scottsdale/Paradise Valley tap water ban has been extended indefinitely. It was previously set to expire on Friday, January 18.
Until more is known, we caution readers from the affected area against any use of the contaminated water – whether for bathing, washing, cooking, feeding pets, etc since TCE can cause harm whether ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin.
In the meantime, we’re in the process of obtaining reliable information about in-home water filtration and will post it here as soon as we have it.
Update: We have learned that EPA’s official position is that people shouldn’t drink the water, but are OK to shower in it. We feel this as an irresponsible recommendation since EPA knows that showering in contaminated water results in exposure comparable to that from drinking tap-water. As the Children’s Environmental Health Project reminds us:
Dermal absorption is also a route of exposure to contaminants that are found in soil, air and water. For example, exposure may occur via bathing, showering or immersion in contaminated natural swimming water and, therefore, through direct skin absorption. There has been considerable study concerning the exposure in bath, shower and chlorinated pool water to chlorine disinfection by-products. Inhalation and dermal absorption are the two most likely routes of exposure to certain of these substances.
Similarly, ATSDR confirms:
Dermal absorption of contaminants in water occurs during bathing, showering, or swimming and may be a significant route of exposure depending on the substance-specific characteristics.
[...]
In some model shower experiments, about 40–60% of tricholoroethylene (TCE) in water was volatilized to the air, depending on water temperature and other factors (Andelman 1985). A one-compartment exposure model used by Maslia et al. (1996) indicated that exposure to TCE by inhalation during shower is nearly identical to that of ingesting water contaminated with TCE.
Though the levels of contamination have reportedly dropped below the 5ppb MCL, we still advise against any use of the water until it is officially cleared for drinking.
Random Musings, a blog maintained in Arizona, is keeping folks abreast of the latest Scottsdale/Paradise Valley water developments. Most recently, they report that the faulty water treatment facility at Miller Road (MRTF) has been shut down. They learned this from Vicki Rosen of the EPA who sent another email. This time she says:
Hello CIG,
I learned a few more bits of information regarding the failure(s) at the MRTF. Specifically, this deals with the legal relationships between EPA, the State of Arizona, the County, the Participating Companies (PCs) and the AZ American Water Co.
EPA and the State of Arizona signed a Consent Decree (CD) with the PCs, not the water company. The PCs are responsible for extracting and treating groundwater contaminated with TCE. The PCs chose the water company to do this, but the PCs are not responsible for the operation & maintenance of the plant. EPA has no direct authority over the water company under the CD.
The AZ American Water Co. is subject to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) which EPA has delegated to the State and the State has delegated to the County. All three entities (fed, state, county) may take enforcement action against the water company. The PCs are not subject to the SDWA.
Read more at Random Musings.
The East Valley Tribune (AZ) has just called bullsh*t on American Arizona Water company for suggesting that all customers had been warned about its recent TCE leak. In response to customer complaints about their failure to notify and their failure to be truthful about it, AAW’s spokesperson fessed up:
Todd Walker, Arizona American spokesman, acknowledged the company’s reverse 911 notification system, which sends automated alert messages to customers, only reaches about 65 percent of those households.
“We apologize that we were unable to reach every single customer individually,” Walker said. “We recognized that it was an imperfect system going into it. No system is able to contact 100 percent of the people 100 percent of the time.”
Read the full story.
Over the past few days, news reports coming out of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley have suggested that all Arizona American Water customers were notified of the failure that caused elevated levels of TCE to pour through their taps.
According to EPA (emphasis added),
AZ American Water and the PCs went into response mode and notified all customers who would have gotten that water;
According to news reports (emphasis added):
Private water utility Arizona American Water Co. advised its nearly 5,000 customers in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley Wednesday to drink bottled water after discovering a malfunction that may have allowed a suspected cancer-causing chemical into their tap water.
The TCE Blog has learned that these statements simply are not true. As we have learned from residents, many were not notified by the water company. Two examples of the comments and emails we have received follow below:
I am a customer of AZ-american water, and I was not informed of the risk today. I have lived in the same house since 1986, and have had the same phone number, so I question whether everyone was informed. I did not learn about it until the 10 o’clock news.
Please update your blog so that it accurately reflects that AW did NOT notify “all consumers through its automated-feature call” as they told the media. In fact, Kiva Elementary School and all the residents [we] have spoken with in our neighborhood…did not learn about the TCE contaminated water supply from American Water, but from our local evening news. Many of our neighbors were still unaware of the situation the next day until we informed them. Moreover, there are likely many elderly individuals who to this day are not aware that they should not be consuming the TCE-contaminated water.
American Water has been far less than candid with its consumers and the public. This company has a poor track record when it comes to accurately reporting TCE contamination. Please don’t give AW credit for notifying customers when in fact it did not.
Meantime, a number of folks have written to us asking about the safety of using TCE-contaminated water for bathing or washing clothes (or other uses not explicitly warned against by the water company). Since TCE can be absorbed through the skin and since TCE can vaporize and get into the air people breathe, the TCE Blog recommends against any use of water that is contaminated above the federal MCL (5ppb). Sadly, it’s no surprise to us that locals aren’t hearing this from the water company…
As always, we’ll try to keep you posted as more develops.
A friend of the blog just sent this in. Note: CIG stands for Community Involvement Group. These are members of the community that represent citizen interests in the investigation and clean-up of the North Indian Bend Wash superfund site (more on this to come…).
—– Forwarded message from Rosen.Vicki@epamail.epa.gov —–
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:33:18 -0800
From: Rosen.Vicki@epamail.epa.gov
Subject: Another failure at the Miller Road Treatment Facility
Hello CIG members,
You may have already read about this week’s failure at the MRTF in the
newspapers, but this note is to let you know what EPA knows so far about
what happened.
Yesterday (Wed. Jan. 16), Jamey received a call from Dennis Shirley,
consultant to the Participating Companies (PCs), advising that there had
been another release. Jamey immediately informed all the appropriate
people at EPA, but it was late in the day so that’s why this message
wasn’t sent sooner.
This is what we got from Dennis:
The release was discovered yesterday by Arizona American Water at 6:30 am.
A blower on Tower 3 (which treats water from well PCX-1) had shut off.
That shutoff could have happened as early as the day before (Tues, Jan.
15) at 2:30 pm. There may have been 16 hours when untreated water entered
the system.
Athough controls were supposed to be in place that would shut down the
system in such an event, this did not happen. Untreated water containing
TCE was discharged into the drinking water system. Sampling has found
that levels of TCE at approximately 20 parts per billion (ppb) were
distributed into the system. Sampling continues at the point of entry and
throughout the system.
The MRTF was immediately shut down as soon as the failure was discovered.
It is currently not operating.
AZ American Water and the PCs went into response mode and notified all
customers who would have gotten that water; this was done through a
reverse-911 system of phone calls to each household telling people to not
drink the water. People were also told that free bottled water would be
available at a particular location.
Top managers at AZ American Water have supposedly already briefed
Congressman Harry Mitchell directly.
This is what we know so far. EPA is consulting with a number of parties
to assess the situation and what should be done. In the meantime, almost
all of our NIBW team is out of the office until at least next Tues (Jan.
22). Jamey is spending time with his brand new baby boy (their first), so
it may be a while before you hear directly from him. I’m actually out of
the office today having just had minor surgery, and I will not be in
tomorrow either. If I get any emails from any of you, you may not get a
response until next week. Monday is a federal holiday.
I will be back in touch with everyone as we learn more. We will also
start to look at when we can get together in person to discuss these
important issues.
Vicki
—– End forwarded message —–
We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.
The East Valley Tribune (AZ) is reporting:
Private water utility Arizona American Water Co. advised its nearly 5,000 customers in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley Wednesday to drink bottled water after discovering a malfunction that may have allowed a suspected cancer-causing chemical into their tap water.
It’s the second time in about three months the company has had problems with excess trichloroethylene, or TCE, potentially entering drinking water from the Miller Road Treatment Facility, at Miller Road and McDonald Drive.
Customers of Scottsdale’s municipal water system are unaffected.
…
The company is making bottled water available free of charge to all customers at 6215 N. Cattle Track Road in Scottsdale and at the Paradise Valley Town Hall, 6401 E. Lincoln Dr., [American Arizona spokesperson Todd Walker] said.
Further in the article, we learn there was a similar problem not too long ago:
The EPA in mid-November announced that water containing 9.2 parts per billion of TCE had been introduced into American Water’s drinking water supply after workers at the Miller Road Treatment Facility shut down one of the plant’s towers for inspection and shifted operations to a third, unused tower. The federal maximum for TCE in drinking water is 5 parts per billion.
Arizona American officials said that the tainted water was blended with TCE-free water, lowering TCE concentrations to within federal mandates.
Gotta love that blended water… Read the full story here. To read about the mid-November contamination referenced above, see here.
According to the East Valley Tribune (Scottsdale, AZ), a former Scottsdale resident petitioned the ATSDR to determine if cancer rates in the area are elevated:
“Those of us who were developing children in the NIBW [the North Indian Bend Wash Superfund site] would like to know definitively if there is a higher rate of cancer among our population,” Oberlender wrote in a request to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
The petition, submitted in January, is being reviewed to determine if more evidence is needed, said Charles Green, a disease registry spokesman. A response is expected in early April.
The Superfund site is 13-square-mile area in Scottsdale and Tempe. It is bounded roughly by the Salt River on the south, Chaparral Road on the north, Scottsdale Road on the west and Loop 101 on the east.
TCE, or trichloroethylene, was used to clean circuit boards beginning in the 1950s. It was dumped down dry wells, sewers and into leaching beds for three decades until it was discovered in 1981 in five drinking water wells that serve Scottsdale.
The wells, three of which were owned by Phoenix until Scottsdale purchased them in 1987, were closed immediately, but concentrations of TCE were as high as 390 parts per billion near the time they were shut, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The federal standard for drinking water is less than 5 parts per billion.
Four companies — Motorola, GlaxoSmithKline, Salt River Project and SMI Holding, formerly Siemens — have claimed the lion’s share of the more than $100 million in cleanup costs. Between 1981 and June 2006, an estimated 61.3 billion gallons of groundwater from the site were pumped and treated to remove an estimated 56,800 pounds of TCE.
It is expected to take 20 more years to clean up 90 percent of all the TCE in the groundwater, said Dennis Shirley, project coordinator for the companies.
[...]
Oberlender, who lives in Blacksburg, Va., particularly takes issue with a Superfund fact sheet Scottsdale posts online that says “trace” amounts of industrial chemicals, primarily TCE, were found in two of Scottsdale’s drinking water wells. Three wells owned by Phoenix that supplied water to Scottsdale residents for decades were some of the most contaminated. But the city does not reference those in its fact sheet, Oberlender said.
“Some Scottsdale residents are under the false impression that they did not drink the contaminated water because they paid their water bills to the city of Phoenix,” she said.
Read the full story here.
We told you they were nominated. Now we learn they have won.
The lawyers from Baron & Budd and Richard “Rick” Gonzales of Tucson, Ariz.-based The Gonzales Law Firm, P.C., were chosen for this year’s award based on their combined work in two cases involving groundwater contamination in the Tucson area.
Congratulations to Rick and Baron & Budd. Thank you for fighting for the rights of communities exposed to TCE.
The Arizona Daily Star reports:
In the last chapter in a decades-long story, Tucson International Airport will begin building a second treatment plant to remove toxic chemicals from an unused groundwater source at the airport.
The Tucson Airport Authority board on Tuesday voted Tuesday to award the Ashton Co. a $3.5 million contract to construct the cleanup facility on the west ramp of the airport. This is the last portion of land needing to be treated, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The plant, which will be designed to remove chemicals like trichloroethylene, or TCE, is scheduled to begin operations in early 2007, according to TAA spokeswoman Paula Winn.
[...]
The chemical was found to be the responsibility of several Air Force contractors who worked on the land from 1940-1970, Winn said.
Several residents of the South Side said they have lost family members to various TCE-linked cancers and diseases. Several lawsuits were filed by South Side residents, with the last one settled last month for a total of $49 million.
Read more here.
Exposure to cancer- and disease-causing beryllium has become a concern, despite the state’s reassurance that there is nothing to fear.
The Arizona Daily Star reports:
South Side residents affected by contaminated water wells more than 25 years ago will receive $49.5 million in a settlement with an insurance company that once covered the city and Tucson Airport Authority.
The residents met Saturday with attorneys Fred Baron and Richard Gonzales, who outlined the proposed settlement with Associated Aviation Underwriters during three different private sessions at Sunnyside High School. A fourth session is scheduled today for the remaining plaintiffs.
Baron, of the Dallas-based firm Baron & Budd, declined to release details of the settlement, citing attorney-client privilege.
Read more
The Tucson Citizen (AZ) reports:
They were told when they started getting sick that it was because of the chilies and beans they ate.
Rose Augustine remembers how bureaucrats told neighbors in a largely Hispanic South Side community they were getting sick because of their ethnicity, not because of an industrial solvent contaminating their water.
“They tried to put the blame on the community that’s affected,” she said.
After 25 years of lawsuits, settlements, appeals and judgments in their favor, Augustine and 1,600 others who sued over trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination will be presented with a deal to end the litigation that netted them and their lawyers more than $130 million.
Hughes Aircraft and the city of Tucson were accused of dumping TCE in the water table for 29 years, beginning in 1952. A lawsuit against the city was settled in 1981 for $31 million, and in 1991 a suit against Hughes Aircraft was settled for $84.5 million.
Plaintiffs have received payments from Hughes, but three city insurance companies claimed they weren’t liable. Two have since settled.
Read more here.
AZstar.net reports:
After more than 15 years of litigation and appeals, lawyers reached a settlement with an insurance company for those affected by contaminated water on Tucson’s South Side more than 25 years ago.
The details of the settlement were not released by the lawyers for the case because those with claims have not agreed to the terms yet, said Fred Baron, a lawyer from Dallas who has been working on the case.
The lawyers will meet with about 1,200 of the 1,618 plaintiffs in the case this weekend at Sunnyside High School to discuss the details of the settlement. If the clients agree to the amount their claim was settled for, they could have their share of the money within a few weeks, said Baron, who worked with local attorney Richard Gonzales.
[...]
The suit, against Associated Aviation Underwriters, was brought by people who lived on the South Side when water supplies there were contaminated with trichloroethylene, or TCE, an industrial cleaning chemical used as a degreaser for airplanes.
Associated Aviation Underwriters insured the airport from 1960 to 1972. TCE was found in South Side wells in 1981.
[...]
The residents of the area started suffering from illnesses, but didn’t know they were extraordinary or that they could have been linked to the contamination, residents said.
“I watched the people that just died. As a young woman there, I didn’t understand it, I thought all of America was dying of cancer,” said Joe Lanier, 71. Lanier is a plaintiff in the case and lived on the South Side with her children and near her parents at the time the contaminated wells were discovered.
“We knew we had a lot of illnesses, but we thought that what we had everybody had,” said Rose Augustine, another plaintiff in the case. “It was quite shocking when we found out what had happened to our water.”
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality will soon begin the clean-up of TCE and PCE contamination beneath the old Oliver’s Cleaners building at 300 E. Seventh St.
Update: The Tucson Citizen is also carrying this story and includes a pretty picture of the contamination area:
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