Sludge Watch ==> Living in Fear of One's Own Water Supply - Hinkley Calif

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Stay tuned Hinkley.  And Erin, where are you?
Looks like the chromium contamination is still a concern in Hinkley.
And now they have the proposal of becoming a new destination for
Southlands sewage sludge...Nursery Products LLC wants a site near
Hinkley for open air composting of sewage sludge.


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http://www.desertdispatch.com/2006/115608646830025.html

Sunday, August 20, 2006
Living in fear of one's own water supply

By HOWARD DECKER / Staff Writer

HINKLEY - Diane Schooff is afraid.

Story Photo

Howard Decker / Staff Photographer

Dianne Schooff looks across the fence line of her ranch on State Highway 
58 in Hinkley. She has been told that the test well, to her right, that 
is on a neighbor's property and only a few feet from her land, has been 
found to contain a toxic chemical.

She is not so much afraid for herself, although that is a consideration, 
but for the brood mares and foals to be born soon on her 10-acre ranch 
on Highway 58. Schooff fears that the toxic hexavalent chromium plume 
from the Pacific Gas & Electric plant nearby might cause deformed foals 
or kill some or all of her 11 horses.

She fears that the seven test wells that run in a northwesterly 
direction near her home, including two homesites next door, means that 
her water well will soon be contaminated, or already is.

"I'm breeding the sel1 horses, and who knows what deformities might show 
up in the foals if the plume is in my well," she said.

It scares her when she thinks about neighbors who have lost foals and 
adult horses recently and wonders if it is toxic plume in the water that 
killed them.

She is afraid that the $250,000 she put into her home and land will be 
mostly lost.

The toxic plume, which received international attention in the film 
"Erin Brockovich," is said by PG&E to run in a northerly direction for 
1.5 miles. The utility is currently under a mandate to monitor and clean 
up the plume, but Schooff fears that the company is not taking residents 
like her seriously and are not notifying area residents about what is 
going on. She has only been in town about eight months, she said, and 
did not know about the history of the plume.

The test wells are easy to spot because they are painted yellow, she said.

When she confronted a worker who came to test the well right next door 
to her house, she said, she asked if another neighboring property to the 
north of her had tested positive for hexavalent chromium.

"He said, 'Well, you didn't hear it from me,' " Schooff said.

She asked the worker why his crew members were testing her well several 
times a week and he asked her how she knew it was his crew.

"Because they came with you the first time you tested the wells," she 
told him.

The man claimed they were not testing her wells for hexavalent chromium 
but just checking her water table.

Schooff believes the man was being evasive and the crew would not be 
interested in the water level at her place. She worries they are not 
only testing for hexavalent chromium but also may have found it in her 
well and are not talking.

"I told the guy 'I don't understand why you are checking my water level 
and why you would even be interested in that,'" she said.

In February, she said, she was told that her well tested clear of any 
toxic matter but there were traces found next door.

She worries that if there are traces next door, then hexavalent chromium 
will most likely be in her well or will show up soon.

The test wells seem to suggest, she said, that the plume is working its 
way northeast from the PG&E facility. It may be headed for Hinkley 
School, she fears.

The testing appears to include taking water samples and extracting soil 
samples from the ground, Schooff said.

The soil samples, she said, are put into trash bins which are locked up 
until removed from the area.

The company that is doing the testing is called "CH2M Hill," and 
according to their Web site, they are a "global leader in full-service 
engineering, construction and operations."

Schooff fears that a new test well on a nearby dairy that produces milk 
products and also raises replacement heifers may show hexavalent 
chromium has invaded the water the cows drink. CH2M Hill did not respond 
to telephone requests for comment on this article.

"Everyone is going to lose here," she said. "It is a no-win situation."

CH2M Hill has asked her if they could send a home appraiser to her ranch 
on a "fact-finding mission." She fears property in the area is now worth 
a fraction of what she and other landowners paid. One landowner was 
offered $3,000 per acre for his land, far less than what he paid for it, 
she said.

Schooff, who works at home sewing rodeo clothing, looks out her picture 
window at the desert landscape dotted with test wells, and she is 
afraid. Will she will lose her dream ranch and be paid only a few cents 
on the dollar for it?
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