Page: B1

Source: By Kathe Tanner

The Tribune

Date: Tuesday, April 1, 2003

Publication: SAN LUIS OBISPO TRIBUNE

Headline: TAINTED WATER FROM CAMBRIA TAKEN SOUTH

GALLONS HAULED TO SANTA MARIA IN CLEANUP EFFORT

Nearly 10,000 gallons of water are being trucked daily from Cambria to Santa Maria as part of a cleanup of groundwater tainted by a gasoline additive.

ChevronTexaco Corp. has been having tanker trucks haul the water 65 miles daily since the start of the year after many Cambria residents objected to dumping the residual water in Santa Rosa Creek.

    The water is mixed at a Santa Maria treatment plant with septic sewage from rural areas in three counties. It creates what wastewater scientists call a beneficial

    blend.

    Cambria's residual water helps dilute the septic sewage, explained John Zhao, utility engineer at the Santa Maria plant.

    The residual water is left over from ChevronTexaco's cleanup of Cambria groundwater contaminated with MTBE.

    That treated byproduct is dubbed "MTBE-impacted water," a technical term that falls somewhere between drinkable water and hazardous waste.

    That contamination has threatened Santa Rosa Creek and two of the Cambria Community Services District's drinking water wells, which have been idled by the   

    spill.

    The contamination has been at the heart of a three-year battle between the oil company and the services district, which provides water to the town of 6,400.

    MTBE, or methyl-tertiary-butyl ether, has been added to gasoline since 1979 to cut harmful exhaust emissions.

    It dissolves easily in water and causes an unusual odor and unpleasant taste. It can cause flulike symptoms and has been suspected -- but not proven -- to cause

    cancer.

    ChevronTexaco is hauling the water out of the county because the services district objected strongly to the oil company's plans to dump the water into the creek.

    The agency mounted a petition drive and organized a campaign to block the plan. The oil company then opted to put that proposal on indefinite hold.

    It's costing ChevronTexaco nearly 5 cents per gallon to haul the water, according to public records.

    Still, it's saving it money, company spokesman Ed Spaulding said.

    No public review or City Council approval was required for Santa Maria to take the MTBE-tainted water.

    The city has an approved program that allows "us to accept all kinds of things we can treat," including gunk from other areas, said its head of public works,

    Paul Karp.

    The plant's stinky stew includes "septage, sludge, grease and even wine wastes, which we hate because the yeast in it can destroy the sewer plant."

    That's another way that the water from the Cambria cleanup is helpful in Santa Maria's efficient bio-filtration process, Zhao explained. "It dilutes the yeast in the

    wine wastes."

    "Otherwise, when we add oxygen to the wine (as part of the treatment process), the yeast would continue to grow."

    In 2000, when Chevron began cleaning up the Cambria contamination, the company had the residual water hauled to its oil fields in Kern County.

    There, it was used to soften the thick, viscous crude oil to make it easier to pump out of the ground, Spaulding said.

    But state regulators objected because Chevron had not obtained authorization to inject the water into the oil fields. That's when the company proposed dumping

    the treated residual water into Santa Rosa Creek.