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E-mail StoryResidents OK with EPA site cleanup
Officials detail plan for Arvin water remediation
| Monday, Nov 19 2007 10:59 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Nov 19 2007 10:59 PM
Residents didn’t get everything they wanted, but enough to be happy with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to clean a site contaminated by pesticide spills and chemicals.
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Part of the EPA’s plan to monitor contamination in the water caused by the Brown and Bryant site is an improvement from initial discussions, said Ingrid Brostrom, an attorney with the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.
“We’re glad to see that,” Brostrom said at a public meeting Monday night with the EPA and residents. “We’re willing to work with the EPA.”
About 50 people attended the meeting at the Arvin Veterans Hall where EPA employees outlined the plan to clean up water contaminated by the Brown and Bryant site.
The site, near East Bear Mountain Boulevard, was a fertilizer and insecticides manufacturing plant.
Soil and groundwater at the site were contaminated by pesticide spills and improperly handled chemicals.
The EPA’s plan entails relocating the city well, removing contaminants in shallow groundwater and monitoring water in a deeper level, according to Nancy Riveland with the EPA.
“We want to do what’s best for the community,” Riveland said.
Resident Jaime Berumen said he would have liked to have seen a plan that included the removal of contaminants in the deeper water level.
EPA officials said there is not enough water in the deeper zone to pump and treat.
Berumen, who is a member of the Committee for a Better Arvin, presented a report card to the EPA that evaluated the EPA’s plan in cleaning up the site.
He said the plan “is a right step in the right direction.”
The EPA is in litigation with the Santa Fe Railway and Shell companies over who must pay to clean up the site, said Travis Cain, EPA remedial project manager.
The EPA has also applied with its headquarters to help pay for the cleanup, according to Riveland.
Once the equipment is in place, it may take 10 to 15 years to remove pollution from the water, Riveland said.