State Water Board: Contamination is possible in some areas

SANTA CRUZ >> Residents living and working in the Capitola Road and 17th Avenue areas may be impacted by dry cleaning solvent contamination, according to a set of public notices posted online by the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, and trichloroethylene, or TCE, are solvents that likely originated from former dry cleaning operations at 1600 Capitola Road, which according to the water board, ceased in the mid ‘80s.

Community members could be impacted one of two ways: either by exposure from using private well water, or through indoor air contamination, that occurs through a phenomena called vapor intrusion.

Chemicals spilled onto the ground can seep into the soil, and air spaces in the ground. Over time the contamination can enter buildings

ings through utility lines or cracks in foundations, and pollute indoor air.

Those impacted should receive a physical notice in the mail, which was sent out Tuesday, according to the state board.

To check if your home or workplace may be impacted, review the water board notices at bit. ly/3d9cBgD and navigate to site maps/documents. If a resident’s home or business is located within the notice’s “Site Location & Investigation Area” map, it’s possible dry cleaning solvent contamination could be present.

The notices, in total, were sent to 132 entities, including landlords, tenants and residents, as well as homeowner’s associations, according to Dan Niles an engineering geologist with the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, who’s overseeing the investigation.

At this point, Niles said

the board has not collected evidence that finds those parcels noticed have been impacted by the contamination.

“We need to complete the investigation to know where the contamination is, we have a pretty good idea now, because we’ve

had four different rounds of investigation related to the dry cleaner,” Niles said. “We would like to keep stepping out to define where it is , we have to complete the picture of where the contamination is to clean it up.”

The public notices comes after environmental investigations found PCE levels in soil vapor far exceeding standards.

Near the to-be-developed affordable housing and medical campus, PCE was detected in soil vapor at levels ranging from 100,000 micrograms per meter cubed, to 1.5 million micrograms per meter cubed. More recently, PCE was found at 4.6 million micrograms per meter cubed, and other levels exceeding thresholds, near the site of the former dry cleaners.

Those soil gas detections

are orders of magnitude beyond state board residential and commercial health and safety standards, which are 15 and 67 micrograms per meter cubed, respectively.

“Those vapor concentrations are definitely above risk thresholds, that we should say, ‘hey we should look further’… it looks like it warrants further investigation and cleanup,” Niles said.

According to Niles, the environmental samples that have been collected show a drop off of pollution levels as one moves out from the former dry cleaner. But, until more data and samples are collected in and around residential areas, the levels of solvent contamination community members are exposed to is still unclear.

Taking more samples, near businesses, and homes, is important, Niles said. Still, further investigation and cleanup is largely held up unless state grant funding is awarded to the former dry cleaner owners, who is financially responsible for mitigating the pollution.

According to the set of

waterboard notices, the former dry cleaner owners have limited funds to pay for indoor air sampling on residential or business properties. The same goes for private wells that may be polluted with PCE.

As a result, the Central Coast Water Board is asking impacted community members themselves carry out, or pay for sampling of soil vapor, or well water. They’d also need to pay for laboratory analysis in both cases, according to the notices.

“It is an unfortunate thing, if there’s no money for the responsible part to do it, we’re in a conundrum

to be honest,” Niles said. “But that doesn’t negate the need for people to know about the contamination. if the money becomes available we’ll come back and say the responsible party has the money, we can do the investigation, would you like to participate? We don’t really have anything to offer other than it’s there, we’re working on getting the funding to complete the investigation and we wanted to give people the information at least at the minimum.”