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E-mail StoryShafter awaiting cleanup proposal
POLLUTION
| Friday, Jan 25 2008 9:50 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Jan 25 2008 9:53 PM
Shafter residents and city officials are gearing up for the release of a long-awaited plan to clean up a polluted industrial site that forced the city to abandon a drinking water well nearly 20 years ago.
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Pesticide maker Brown and Bryant shut down the plant near Lerdo Highway and Highway 43 in the late 1980s, leaving the property laden with chemicals used at the facility.
Steps were taken to prevent the chemicals from seeping into groundwater, but the city took a nearby well offline to be safe.
The well remains in place as a backup supply in the event of an earthquake or major disaster that would strain the city's water supply. The chemicals haven't seeped into groundwater since then, city tests show, but officials fear they might if pollution isn't removed.
"There are technologies to deal with (the pollution), and we need to get on with getting the site fixed," City Manager John Guinn said.
Brown and Bryant went bankrupt, so the state has required the company's chemical suppliers to clean up the site.
They include Shell Oil, Dow Chemical and Hercules Inc. A railroad company that owns a piece of the property is also involved in the cleanup. The companies have created a draft plan that is under review by the state Department of Toxic Substance Control and is expected to be made public in the coming months.
A community meeting has been planned for early February to provide an overview of the site and the cleanup plan approval process, said Ingrid Brostrom, a staff attorney with the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, a group that helps rural communities organize on environmental issues.
The group planned a meeting for earlier this week but had to reschedule because of a technical glitch.
Brostrom said Shafter residents are concerned the cleanup plan was written by the chemical companies.
Brostrom has seen a draft copy of the plan and said "their goals aren't high."
Similar concerns prompted city officials to hire an outside consultant to assess the remediation plan.
"The council felt it wouldn't hurt to have the third party look at it," he said.
"It's an important matter."
Brown and Bryant also owned a plant in Arvin that was declared a Superfund site by the federal government, in part because of groundwater contamination.
Under a recently issued cleanup plan for the Arvin property, a pump-and-treat groundwater system will be installed, and a nearby city well will be relocated.