July
2, 2014
The
Union of Grass Valley
By Dave Brooksher
More than a week after the
release of a grand jury report alleging that multiple state and county agencies
have failed in their responsibilities to monitor the environmental impact of
mine water in Nevada County, most of those state agencies have called that
report’s validity into question.
The state Department of Fish
and Wildlife is still working on its official response. But every other agency
named in the report has stated that the grand jury seemed to be unaware of much
of the work that has been done on this issue.
The State Department of Toxic
Substance Control and the State Water Resources Control Board’s Regional Water
Control Board have both stated that the grand jury’s report failed to include
key facts pertaining to the historical mining operations named.
“Significant work has been done
at the Lava Cap, Empire and North Star mine sites that was not included in the
Nevada County grand jury’s report,” said Stewart Black, deputy director of the
Brownfields and Environmental Restoration Program for the DTSC.
“We look forward to working
with Nevada County to share updated information on this work,” Black added. “We
also will continue to confer and coordinate with the affected local, state and
federal agencies.”
Tamma Adamek, a spokeswoman for
the DTSC, said she was not aware of any attempts by the grand jury to speak
with the agency.
“I think they only talked to
the city and the county,” Adamek said. “Therefore, they’re missing a huge chunk
of information.”
In an earlier interview, Adamek
joked that it was as if the grand jury had failed to read any document dated
after 1997.
The Central Valley Regional
Water Quality Control Board is not named in the grand jury’s report, but they
are the responsible subsidiary of the State Water Resources Control Board —
which the grand jury called out for failing to meet its obligations.
“As far as I know, they didn’t
talk to or contact anybody,” said Andrew Altevogt, assistant executive officer of
the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. “For one thing, we
have a lot of the water quality data that was being talked about in the
report,”
The grand jury report chides
several agencies for failing to collect data about contaminant levels in
surface and ground water, but Altevogt says some of that data already exists
and could have been shared with the grand jury.
“We disagree with some of their
conclusions,” Altevogt added.
Locally, the grand jury report
names the Planning Department and the Department of Environmental Health. Both
of those departments fall under the Nevada County Community Development Agency.
“I am very troubled by what are
purported to be facts in the report which lead to some erroneous conclusions,”
said Steve DeCamp, director of the CDA.
“The primary concern of the
grand jury and the county is the issues regarding the Banner Lava Cap mine,”
DeCamp said. “The fact that it’s a superfund site is a glaring hole in that
report.”
The United States Environmental
Protection Agency assumed all responsibility for that cleanup, DeCamp said. The
county keeps in contact with the federal agency to make sure that progress is
being made, but it is merely an interested observer with no active role in the
process.
The Community Development
Agency is required by the courts to respond to the conclusions and
recommendations in the grand jury’s report, and that response is due by Sept.
20. DeCamp said he hopes to release that information sooner than required.
“We really don’t want the
citizens of this county thinking that the county has been remiss in dealing
with hazardous conditions,” he said.
When contacted about some of
the alleged omissions, Nevada County grand jury foreman Keith Overbey
responded, “State law prohibits myself or any member of the grand jury from
commenting on any discussion or deliberation by grand jurors during an inquiry.
The report and the facts therein stand as published.”
Overbey added, “The Nevada
County grand jury has no authority to investigate or inquire into the
activities of state and federal agencies and, as such, we have no authority to
request responses from those agencies.”
In response to the report, the
California Department of Toxic Substances Control generated a list of cleanup
actions and background information for each mining site that appear to have
been ignored in the grand jury’s facts and findings.
Lava Cap Mine
The grand jury noted that a
cyanide plant had been activated in 1940, and that a log dam had been
constructed to hold the tailings by 1941. In 1979 that dam partially collapsed,
releasing 80,000 cubic yards of mine waste downstream toward Lost Lake — which
had been constructed in 1943 specifically to contain mine runoff from the site.
A cleanup and abatement order
was issued by the State Water Resource Control Board, but the grand jury found
no facts indicating that it had been effectively enforced.
The remaining part of the dam
collapsed on New Year’s Day in 1997, releasing 10,000 cubic yards of tailings
into Little Clipper Creek, Clipper Creek, Lost Lake and nearby wetlands. After
that, the grand jury says a series of bureaucratic steps ensued — but an
effective cleanup effort did not.
As of 2013, nearby drainages
still contained elevated levels of arsenic in drinking water wells — and the
contractor hired to remove mine tailings after the 1979 dam failure did not
complete the job, according to the grand jury report.
Tamma Adamek said that fails to
capture the full picture.
The State Department of Toxic
Substance Control says the EPA conducted a time-critical removal of arsenic
tailings after the 1997 failure, followed by a second removal action in 2003
and 2004. In 2006 and 2007, EPA built a security fence around the site and
introduced several structures to help remediate the problem.
The EPA also relocated two
nearby households, installed water filtration units for three homes with
contaminated water wells, and built a new pipeline to supply others with safe
water from the Nevada Irrigation District.
Both the grand jury and the
State Department of Toxic Substance Control report that little or no
communication took place between the two organizations during the preparation
of the grand jury’s report.
North Star Mine
The Drew Tunnel is a component
of the North Star Mine that contains discharge from both the North Star and
Empire mines. Under storm conditions, the grand jury stated, the Drew Tunnel
discharges 400,000 gallons of contaminated mine water into the city of Grass
Valley’s wastewater treatment plant.
That mine water contains iron,
manganese, copper, lead, zinc and mercury — but the wastewater treatment plant
is not designed to process those chemicals.
Grass Valley sued the mine’s
owners, Newmont Mining, in 2004. The settlement terms included a requirement
that Newmont build its own wastewater treatment plant facility to deal with
contamination from North Star and the Drew Tunnel by 2013, and so far that
hasn’t happened.
The grand jury is urging the
city to take legal action, forcing Newmont to comply with that settlement. But
Tim Kiser, Grass Valley’s director of public works, has said that Newmont is in
compliance.
The settlement included
provisions allowing for deadline extensions, Kiser said.
The grand jury indicated that
the city and the county’ Environmental Health department have both failed to
test water quality downstream from the wastewater treatment plant — but the
State Water Resources Control Board’s Central Valley Regional Water Quality
Control board has said they have that data available, and would have provided
it to the grand jury on request.
Empire Mine
The Magenta Drain is a
component of the Empire Mine, and it runs through Grass Valley’s Memorial Park.
A security fence has been built to keep park visitors from exposure to the
Magenta Drain’s contents, but the grand jury has recommended that the city
immediately take steps to divert the contents of the drain from “open ditches
which endanger the public.”
The State Department of Toxic
Substance Control has responded, saying that mine water in the Magenta Drain is
treated at a dedicated wastewater treatment plant above the park.
“Data indicate that the plant
is functioning as designed in treating the mine waters, and that the resulting
effluent meets applicable water quality objectives,” a spokesperson said in a
written statement.
The existence of that
wastewater treatment plant is not reflected in the grand jury report’s list of
facts.
To contact Staff Writer Dave
Brooksher, email dbrooksher@theunion.com or call 530-477-4230.
(Nevada
County) Penn Valley: Grand jury report’s ‘blanket message a killer’
July
3, 2014
The
Union of Grass Valley
By Keri Brenner
The Nevada County Civil grand jury’s recent
critical report on area fire agencies failed to consider the uniqueness of Penn
Valley in making sweeping recommendations to merge area fire operations and
create a Nevada County Fire Authority, Penn Valley officials said this week.
“It is unfortunate that the grand jury did
not interview representatives from each of the other agencies that would be
impacted by this report,” said Penn Valley board member John Pelonio in a
prepared statement released at Tuesday’s board meeting.
“A better understanding of Penn Valley Fire
Protection District would have improved the outcome of the investigation.”
The grand
jury report, in calling for the formation of a Nevada County Fire
Authority, focused its criticism on Nevada County Consolidated Fire District,
which the report said projected up to a $2 million to $4 million deficit by
2018-19 if financial operations continued as they were.
However, several sources close to
Consolidated Fire said this week the financial data used for the grand jury
report were outdated and that the district had already made significant
improvements to its budget and future financial projections.
Penn Valley Fire board chairman Kurt Grundel, who objected
to the grand jury report when it was released last Thursday, said
Tuesday that the biggest flaw was the report’s “blanket” assumptions that all
the fire agencies would be affected the same way if a fire authority were
formed under a single fire chief.
“We have two cities and two special
districts,” said Grundel, referring to Penn Valley and Nevada County
Consolidated fire districts, and Grass Valley and Nevada City fire departments.
“There are different levels of chiefs,” he
said. “The cities have city managers, who do the budgets and hand them to the
chiefs, while the chiefs in the special districts do the budgets themselves.
“The blanket message is a killer,” Grundel
added.
Grundel, who serves as a representative of
the Nevada County Local Area Formation Commission, said LAFCo board members
also were opposed to the grand jury’s recommendation that LAFCo take over
research on forming the fire authority.
“They intend to respond (to the grand jury
report) with all negatives,” Grundel said Tuesday.
Pelonio, whose detailed comments will be
merged with the Penn Valley board’s overall response to the grand jury report
later this year, said he disagreed with the report’s conclusion that forming
the authority would save the district money while maintaining the same level of
service. He said the math didn’t pencil out.
For example, Pelonio said, the Penn Valley
fire chief and battalion chief are salaried positions, while other officers who
might fill in for an absent chief are hourly employees. In particular, the Penn
Valley chief and battalion chiefs’ jobs include so-called “duty officer
coverage,” meaning that they serve as point persons on duty for several shifts
every week.
“When neither is available, a captain
provides duty officer coverage,” he said.
“… The chief position provided 96 hours a
week of duty officer coverage,” Pelonio said. “Covering these hours with an
hourly employee, such as a captain, would cost more than the chief’s salary (96
hours of captain pay including overtime, adjusted for back-fill at lower
rate.)”
Pelonio also cited numerous alleged errors in
the grand jury report. One example was the statement that “California
Government Code allows for special district reorganizations to be initiated by
a petition or by resolution of application by the county board of supervisors.”
Pelonio “was unable to find this authority
for the (board of supervisors) in the Government Code,” he said.
Despite the Penn Valley board objections,
Grundel said they are still moving forward with talks for sharing services with
the two city departments and Consolidated Fire, as outlined at a public meeting
on May 12. A subcommittee meeting of the policy-making “working group,”
including elected officials and city managers, has been set for Monday at Grass
Valley City Hall, Grundel said.
Once the policy-making group issues its
directives regarding shared services, the “technical group” of chiefs and
interim chiefs will hammer out the practical details, said Penn Valley Interim
Fire Chief Don Wagner.
Wagner, who was officially welcomed into his
newly appointed interim position on Tuesday, said he and the other chiefs have
already met informally to discuss the shared services and the grand jury
report.
He said they would schedule a formal meeting
after they receive the policy statements from the “working group.”
Grundel on Tuesday noted that the process of
creating shared services “will be a good thing,” he said.
“I think it will be a good foundation,” he
said, “even if it works for some and not for others,”
To contact Staff Writer Keri Brenner, email
kbrenner@theunion.com or call 530-477-4239.
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