March 19, 2012
Risky Business in Ventura County
Typically thought of as one of the safest regions in California, Ventura County is surprisingly home to several serious forms of environmental risk. To make matters worse, most of the county residents are not even aware of the potential dangers that surround them. Two prominent sources of environmental risk in Ventura County are the Halaco Superfund site and beach water quality.
Located in Oxnard, the Halaco superfund site has been slated as one of the worst superfund sites in the nation. With over 700,000 cubic yards of toxic metal waste remaining from Halaco Engineering’s previous smelter plant, the site has been a major threat for nearly five decades. It is known to contain smelter remnants from aluminum, magnesium, zinc, and other scrap metals on an 11-acre parcel as well as 26-acre region of deposited wastes. Bordering the Halaco site is the Ormond Beach wetlands, a vital ecosystem as it is one of the last wetlands left in Ventura County. Additionally, it is home to a number of threatened and endangered species such as the snowy plover and California least tern.
Not only does the site pose risk for surrounding wildlife, but also for local citizens. Halaco ceased utilization of the processing plant in 2004, but the future usage of the privately owned land is unknown to the EPA. Nearby neighborhoods have notoriously been known for high incidences of cancers and other diseases by locals, but no research has been done to prove links to the Halaco site. In addition, agricultural cropland neighbors the site, which may also pose potential risk if any of the toxins leach into the soil. Cleanup measures as well as efforts to keep the pollution on the site and out of Ventura have been attempted, but poorly executed.
The teeming agriculture in Ventura County is also cause for another concern: ocean water quality at the outlets of the Santa Clara River Watershed and the Ventura River Watershed. In the past, Ventura County has faced water quality problems related particularly to storm water runoff. During California’s rainy season, the water quality in Ventura County displays significant degradation, likely because “accumulated pesticides, herbicides, road runoff, bacteria and other assorted water pollutants are flushed out of watersheds and into coastal waters.” Water runoff during the wet season from the Halaco site is also a concern. In 2009, fisherman concerned over pollution in Ventura County pushed for new “no-fishing” spots to reduce the likelihood of catching fish with high levels of toxins, but their efforts were ignored.
In Heal the Bay’s 2010-2011 Annual Beach Report Card, 100% of Ventura County beaches tested received “A” grades during the dry season. However, during the wet season, that number dropped to 37%, and 42% of beaches received grades of C or D. No beaches received F grades during this past season, but Ventura County’s 7-year average indicates 13% of beaches receiving “F” grades in the rainy months. Unfortunately, as reported on March 8, $25,000 will be cut from Ventura’s $300,000 water quality testing budget if Obama’s 2013 budget proposal goes into effect. This would significantly reduce the frequency of testing in Ventura, which could put beachgoers at great risk of exposure. Several recent cleanup measures enacted by Ventura County, such as diversion of polluted water from some storm drains, were only possible because of federal funding, so without it, it’s reasonable to believe that future improvements will be more of a challenge.
Overall, Ventura County has its unique environmental risks, as any other area does. While they are certainly nothing to be ignored, they don’t make the area unlivable by any means. The best approach is to keep awareness of the problems in Ventura County at the forefront so that the citizens can take the proper measures to protect themselves, such as avoiding the beach after a rainstorm, and choosing to live or work further from Halaco. With adequate cleanup effort and prevention measures, Ventura County can ensure that it’s a welcoming place to be for years to come.
Other Sources:
http://oxnardcoastalwetlands.org/Halaco_Factsheet_English_1-09.pdf
Sydney MacEwen and Dawnielle Tellez Alanna are undergraduates in the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Although there have been serious health issues for the people living in the area of Ventura county, why is it that few are connecting the Halaco site and its toxic waste to the health issues or, for that matter, why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? Today the former Halaco site is now privately owned and it seems suspicious that the EPA still does not know what the site is used for now. Houses within a certain radius of the superfund site should be evacuated and deemed unsafe, people should be educated on the topic and aware of the dangers that they face living so close to the superfund site. If it has been a threat for 50 years, we should definitely have technology by now to help clean up some, if not all, of the waste. Not only is there serious risk to human health, but the health of organisms in the environment and crops growing in soil near the waste site are at stake. If people eat the crops, they can easily be poisoned by the toxic waste, affecting more than just the community of Ventura, but all of the communities who purchase crops/produce from this agricultural area. Although the blog is very informative, I think the conclusion sums up the issue too lightly. If we do not take drastic steps now to clean up the mess, people will continue to get poisoned, organisms can die, and crops and water will be infused with the toxic waste, further damaging our environment. Water will be unsafe to drink, crops unsafe to eat, and entire ecosystems, like the nearby wetlands, will be destroyed.
After reading this article, I do agree with the authors that various regions throughout our country have water quality issues and environmental issues. But just because some regions have bigger issues than others doesn’t mean that the smaller problems can be ignored. I think that more residents in that area need to be aware of the consequences of living near a superfund site that could potentially affect their agricultural source. Some people don’t even know what a superfund site is, so creating awareness might prompt some action that could ignite a proposition for more federal funding. A lot of environmental issues are ignored because people are not aware of them, so if this problem of the superfund site and the poor water quality are addressed, then maybe people will take the initiative to solve these issues before it turns into a bigger problem.
I would like to provide a little more in-depth information about the Halaco Superfund Site. Recently, in March of 2012, the EPA released a new Surface Water and Groundwater Sampling and Analysis Results Report providing recent testing measures and results of the contaminated water in the superfund area. The site is located on a semi-perched aquifer which is separated from the “Oxnard Aquifer” by an aquitard, a 30 foot layer of clay and silt that prevents movement between the two aquifers.
The report found that while metals, chlorides, and ammonia contaminate the semi-perched aquifer, there is no known evidence that the vital Oxnard Aquifer has been touched. The Oxnard Aquifer is used as a drinking source for the surrounding community, and therefore must be protected. Luckily, differences in pressure provide little evidence that the semi-perched aquifer has changed since the 1990’s, or will change in the future.
While drastic measures need to be taken to clean up the semi-perched aquifer, it is a relief to know that the drinking water source has avoided contamination thus far.
While I agree that a more rigorous clean up should be implemented at the Halaco site, I believe that the federal government is going along the right path after deeming it a superfund site. After CERCLA, the federal government has chosen toxic sites to be cleaned under a new federal regulation. Though enacted in 1980, The Halaco site was not added to the National Priority list until 2007. It has been four years since its addition, and testing has been done on the site to actually see what the main problems are. There are many problems with the site but the main issue is the three-story pile of heavy metals, organic contaminants and trace amounts of radioactive material. This problem will take years to clean up because they are looking at all the clean up options and finding a way to pay for it. So while the site has yet to be cleaned, the government is on the right track in doing so.