Monday, January 14, 2008

Water Officials Tell Rialto That Perchlorate Levels Are Safe!! (SB Sun Jan, 11, 2008)

BS Ranch Perspective

I don't know about you, but just the idea that PERCHLORATE was, or might be, in the water that is coming out of the Tap, at my home, of which I have a filter on that would not even come close to catching any of the PERCHLORATE that was in the Tap water that I have at my home to drink. Especially knowing that PERCHLORATE contamination causes thyroid cancer and all kinds of other cancers that they don't even mention in any report, they just talk about the main thing that PERCHLORATE attacks and that is the thyroid gland.

I guess at the meeting the officials from the water department was trying to give us reassurance and say that the water at our homes is no longer contaminated with the PERCHLORATE because it has been removed from the water through osmosis filtration, however I know people in the City of Rialto that have lost family Members to the PERCHLORATE contamination and I don't think that they would believe anyone that the PERCHLORATE was removed 100%!!

BS Ranch




Water officials tell Rialto that perchlorate levels are safe
By Jason Pesick, Staff Writer

RIALTO - The water here is safe to drink. That was the message city officials pushed at a town-hall meeting at Frisbie Middle School.

The meeting this week focused on the chemical perchlorate, which is contaminating local drinking water.

Rialto and West Valley Water District officials - which together serve water to the vast majority of Rialto - told residents they don't have to worry about the water coming out of their tap.

"We run the systems until there's no detectable perchlorate," Bill Hunt, an engineering consultant for Rialto, said of the treatment systems at the Thursday meeting.

Perchlorate, a chemical used to produce explosives like rocket fuel and fireworks, is flowing through Rialto from an industrial site north of the 210 Freeway that dates back to World War II.

The panel at the meeting included City Council members Winnie Hanson and Ed Scott, who make up the perchlorate subcommittee, as well as medical, engineering and environmental consultants. For the first hour, the experts made presentations that at times confused people in attendance with talk of "resins" and "lag vessels."

Perchlorate can block the thyroid gland's access to iodine and cause an underactive thyroid, said Mary McDaniel, a doctor and lawyer with the firm McDaniel Lambert Inc. who reviewed a number of recent studies.

"So some of these studies make you worry a little bit more, some of them make you worry a little less. That's science," 

she said.

The thyroid is necessary for metabolism and brain development. It is not well understood how perchlorate affects sensitive populations like pregnant women and children.

McDaniel also pointed out that bottled-water companies do not have to test for perchlorate. If the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets a standard for perchlorate in drinking water, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration might set a perchlorate standard for bottled water, according to the FDA's Web site.

The second half of the meeting was set aside for residents to ask questions.

People with relatives who have birth defects and thyroid conditions wanted to know if perchlorate could have caused them.

Kit Satre, who lives in Yucaipa but worked in Rialto starting in 1985, said she has two children with such serious birth defects that they have had 50 surgeries between them.

But McDaniel said she was not aware of perchlorate causing birth defects, and West Valley Water District board President Earl Tillman said his customers have never been exposed to high levels of perchlorate.

Thursday's meeting had a very different tone than past meetings, which city officials have used to attack San Bernardino County for its role in some of the contamination, as well as to question the safety of West Valley's water.

Scott on Thursday heaped praise on other elected officials, including Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino, and welcomed West Valley representatives.

"We're not serving any perchlorate," said Tillman, the president of West Valley's board.

If West Valley detects perchlorate in one of its wells, it takes the well offline or installs a treatment system, said General Manager Anthony "Butch" Araiza.

A West Valley well with a perchlorate level of 2 parts per billion is no longer online, he said.

Rialto officials say they do not serve water from wells if they detect perchlorate in the wells.

Fontana Water Co., the other big water agency in Rialto and a division of the San Gabriel Valley Water Co., does not serve water contaminated with perchlorate beyond the state's maximum level of 6 ppb, said Robert Young, assistant general manager.

Scott also told residents not to buy personal water treatment systems to clean out the perchlorate because the people selling them may be trying to scam residents.

He also encouraged people to write Marshall Larsen, the chairman, president and CEO of Goodrich, one of the companies Rialto says is responsible for the contamination. Scott said they should tell him to stop fighting Rialto.

jason.pesick@sbsun.com

(909) 386-3861

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